I rubbed my eyes, the sun burned. Warmth surrounded me, I glanced gingerly to see my fuzzy white blanket over me, being my center of warmth. I stretched back onto my pillow, not expecting a groan to accompany it.

Startled by the sound I squirmed to turn around and fell off my couch and onto the floor. I sighed with the giant blanket on top of me.

"Duìbùqǐ" (I am sorry)The person the groan came from whispered as he stood up. I finally uncovered my face from the blanket standing up to finally see him in daylight.

"Tao right?" He nodded sheepishly, rubbing his neck simultaneously. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yes, thank you for letting me stay here."

"Of course I wouldn't have let you sleep outside, you would have died."I paused, "Why were you outside so late in the cold?" At this point, I had stood up and was on my way to the kitchen waiting for Tao to answer me. But he said nothing. I glanced back to see him standing there with his blonde hair refracting all the light the sun-washed in over it. He was very tall and skinny, it reminded me of a walking stick. But his face was very unique it was a nice contrast from average stick to interesting features.

"Tao?" He looked surprised I said his name again.

"Yes? I'm sorry."

"You didn't answer my question, why were you outside last night?"

"Well it wasn't last night, I take it you haven't looked at the date yet, it was two days ago..."

"WE SLEPT FOR TWO DAYS?"

"Yeah I must have been from the cold..." he had become increasingly quite throughout the morning, not that he was talkative in the first place. Sleeping for that long is unnatural, I'm surprised we don't feel sick.

"But why were you outside?" I pushed again,

"Please," a desperate futile attempt, "I don't want to talk about it." He had now been breathing almost haggardly. I reached for a box of Cheerios from the golden wood cabinets.

"You might feel better if you talk about it..." I sighed as I poured the cereal into crisp bowls shiny from their recent wash. No words were spoken for a while, my cold feet were beginning to ache on the chilly tile floor, the milk appeared very smooth as I drowned the dry cereal with it.

Tao still stood there unmoving and seemingly not breathing, a statue.

Traumatized. He must be traumatized, whatever is going on must be hurting him that much.

I walked very slowly into the living room, willing I didn't spill any of the milky cereal on the floor. I gently sat the bowls of Cheerios on the coffee table in front of the couch. Tao still stood silent and terrified.

I was afraid for him. I could see his eyes welling with tears as if he was reliving all the traumatic moments all at once, his mind couldn't handle it.

"Tao, please talk to me to eat the cereal." I motioned to where the bowls sat. He didn't move.

"Zi Tao..." No movement.

I tentatively reached my hand out to touch his arm. His overly long sweatshirt was soft and warm under my icy fingers.

The first sign of movement wasn't a breath or a hand but a stray tear. It slid down his stoic broken face. One turned to several in just seconds.

The true feeling of how he felt was finally being shown through the massive amount of tears that dripped off his face onto his sweater and my head. As of now, I had my arms wrapped around him trying to give him any sense of comfort possible to calm him down.

Once again time became a void of life, I was completely unaware of the time and how long we had been standing there, Tao benignly sobbing on me and me trying to calm him down with any means necessary. I used to think empathy was an emotion I did have but I was proven wrong by the sight of a stranger crying in my arms, how broken he must feel, I can't even imagine.

Hours later he was silent again, breathing steadily with his eyes closed, but not asleep because was drawing patterns with his fingers on my back because I was laying on my side with my head resting in his lap. The occasional had to vary through my hair, he was calm and that's all that mattered to me.

I heard him sharply take in a breath

"It all started when I was a senior in high school, while my classmates were off visiting College in the prospect of going I was in my room working as hard as I could to write songs and produce what I had recorded, I wanted to be in the music industry any means necessary. My parents were so disappointed in that. They wanted me to be something 'noble' like a doctor or scientist but I could never see myself doing that. That was their wish, not mine, I had good enough grades too but I lacked the desire. I applied to every record company and entertainment company possible, eventually, I was accepted at SM as a trainee producer. I worked so hard every day because I was getting to live my dream. My parents were so upset, they told me not to come home..." he started crying again, I listened tentatively to his story, "I trained as a producer for three years before they told me I should be trained enough to start producing the various group's things. I was so excited, but it all went downhill when they got fed up of me not following their wishes, here in China we are known to be wealthy and powerful, they used that power as a stingy weapon on me. They ruined the career I worked so hard for. SM fired my halfway through the process of EXO's most recent album that I had been helping Chanyeol produce. My parents paid a prostitute to tell an elaborate story how I had been paying her to try to break up my parent's marriage by seducing my father. She "sued" me trying to make it seem like I had been beating her too, I would never do anything like that..." he whispered the last part, "I just wanted my parents to accept me for me,

After I got fired I went back home to China to confront them and m-my dad hit me b-because I "was a waste of a space child" I was upset and angry and ran to a bar and became so wasted I didn't even remember that I left until I woke up here today." He stopped. It was at that moment I knew I couldn't let him leave alone and sad, I was going to fix this broken boy.