The Fallen Idol And The Artist

Chapter 1

Xie Lian is a fallen child idol. His parents used to own an idol agency, however due to the rivalry between them and another agency, things had gotten out of hand. Now he's a grown adult working in his own café, and going to university. He had long forgotten, about some of the most traumatic experiences in his life, but when he comes face to face with a handsome young man with an eyepatch he begins to remember some things he'd rather not ever remember again.

The sound of an alarm blares throughout the small addict room, leaving a young man with golden eyes to groan in protest. It's early morning and the sun had barley risen enough to fill the dark sky with color. The young man throws his legs over the edge of his bed and reaches to his alarm to turn it off. He presses the top and lets out a small yawn.

"Three hours this time....a wonderful record," he says quietly to himself. Xie Lian honestly never allows himself to sleep more than five hours as his time is often occupied by school work or running his café. At the age of twenty-two, Xie Lian had the world trying to crush his shoulders with the weight of life. He owned a café in the center of the city, but it had its difficulties. He barley had anyone to work for him, as he barley made enough money to pay the ones who own the building; not to mention covering expenses for deliveries of his products, and all his other debt still uncovered by his parents after their passing. He took online classes, but even that was hard to do when he would run the café on his own during the day. All his school work would need to be finished at night leaving him no time for himself, or anyone for that matter. However, he did not mind this life style. He always made sure to remind himself as to why he chose to do this in the first place, he needed to move on from his previous life. Move on. Continue to move on. Keep moving on. There's no point in dwelling on what could be, or what could have been. For now there just is. There was no one else to help him, but he was fine with that. To him it was better to have no one than to become attached.

Despite this view, he always would become concerned with how he treated others even if they were just strangers. He would be careful with how he spoke, how he moved, and how he presented himself. He would smile to everyone whether they smiled back or not. If a customer was rude, he would handle any commotion with no amount of anger. He wasn't necessarily sure as to why he behaved this way as he would have every right to act however he wanted, but it had always been this way for as long as he could remember.

"Well shall we start our day?" he says aloud to himself. He makes his bed, and cleans up his small coffee table of his previous nights work. He puts his laptop away, and goes through a suitcase filled with clothing for him to wear. The room in the addict was quite small, but it was all he could afford as he was living above his café. His bed was a single sized bed with one pillow, and single blanket. A small set of drawers rested beside the bed, the drawers filled with his school work and another set of bed sheets. Across from the bed sat a few suit cases laying one beside the other each labeled with the names of the items inside. One for shits, pants, undergarments, and work attire. Another bag contained all of his school books, and other reading material he enjoyed to look at. In the center of the room was a small coffee table where he would sit at to do his school work or sit at to read his books while having a small snack. He also would sit and play a flute for fun, and sometimes he would sit at the small window with it open to play for the people outside. However, some would yell for him to stop as they would not want to hear the sound of a flute late into the night or sometimes during the day. In another bag, there were boxes of bandages, and silk wraps as well. These would be used daily, so he would often make sure to buy enough.

He grabs his uniform for the day, and heads downstairs to the restroom while carrying his hygienic materials. He had only one washroom meant for employees downstairs, but in reality this was actually his personal bathroom. He would brush his teeth, and wash himself in this room that would often be locked. He would not want others to really use it unless the other bathrooms were all filled, and it was an emergency. Once he finishes washing up for the day, and dressing in his uniform, he grabs a roll of bandages and prepares to cover up a few markings. He's always had a few markings and even had tattoos to cover up two of them. One tattoo wrapped around his neck, and the other around his ankle. They were colored in black and resembled the look of chains. He doesn't remember going to get them, but they were there and he could not afford to remove them so instead he chose to cover them. His wrists would also be bandaged in order to cover up two scars that just refused to fade fast enough. These were scars that he remembered well, but never remembered why he had put them there. He knew that such things were not normal, to have these markings on his body, yet no recollection as to why or how they were there. He often thought about going to see a therapist, but as usual he had to fight with the fact that he could not afford such expenses. And he would often come to another conclusion, if his mind was protecting him from things he shouldn't see, then it was best to not look back at what those things could be.