Complexity

Elai?

Xinyu Pov

I met Handong and Ning Yizhuo when I was 7 years old. They were not my family, but they adopted me as their family because of the murder I committed.

I am the only child of a criminal family. At first, everything was fine, like a normal family. But since I was 5 years old, I have encountered many new things from my parents and it was really beyond my expectations. Since I was little, I only wanted to get good achievements, good grades, good friendships, everything good, but everything was destroyed because of my parents. The children around my house didn't want to play with me because their parents knew who my parents were and they told their children. Not infrequently I was called 'criminal child'. I didn't ask to be born into a criminal family but here I am.

My real name was Elai, not Xinyu. My parents are drug dealers, motorcycle gang members, murderers, and they are fugitives. Even though I am their child, I am not the same as them. I like studying, dancing, music, and drama. There are some used books that I got from the Warehouse near my house, I am still grateful because I can learn from there. I used to really hope to be able to learn like normal children in general. But because my parents are like that, I can't achieve my dream.

I did try to be normal, but they are still my parents who gave birth to me. The blood of a criminal is still in me. I am used to breaking locks, stealing, and the worst is paralyzing. But I only use all those skills at certain times. Like when I need to open the Warehouse lock to read a book, steal some tools to break the lock, and paralyze animals that bother me.

But when I was 7 years old, I saw with my own eyes that my parents killed several people. The victim's fresh blood stuck to their faces and clothes when they entered the house. You could say I was quite disgusted because they really destroyed my hope in life, until finally I stabbed them while they were sleeping. Some people around were happy, some panicked, some were sad, while I didn't know what I felt. Was I sad? Happy? Angry? Panicked? I'm not sure either.

After the crime scene investigation, it was discovered that I was the perpetrator so they took me to a child rehabilitation center. From there I met Handong who was the son of my prison guard, and Ning Yizhuo whose crime I don't know what. From there we often chatted together and studied together. Handong taught us to write and other lessons. She is 6 years older than us, so we trust her. Thanks to her, we were both adopted as a family with Handong and from there I changed my name to Xinyu. Zhou which I took from one of the Chinese Novels, and Xinyu which was given by Ning - Ning. A beautiful name and also a beautiful meaning.

It did take a long time for me to recover from the nightmares that always haunted me, but now I can fight them.

"And now I'm back in the same environment" I said while looking around to find Sohyun's house.

"Xinyu?" I looked at the owner of the voice which was Ning - Ning.

"What are you doing?"

"That's my question. What are you doing?"

"Looking for Sohyun's house. She didn't go to school and didn't reply to my chat last night. What are you doing?"

"Just hanging out," she answered, which clearly aroused my suspicion because I have known her for almost 8 years.

"Okay, I also want to find out about Sohyun. Are you satisfied?" Her answer this time made me a little confused because why did she want to know about Sohyun?

"Why did you want to find out about Sohyun?"

"Handong said she smelled something strange from Xinyu. Don't think strangely, there was a strange scent on Sohyun's sweater when she hugged Handong yesterday. So she told me to follow you, to find out Sohyun's house. It turns out you don't know either"

"What strange scent?"

"You probably don't remember because you were still little at that time, it's drugs. Handong hasn't find the same thing since 8 years ago, until finally she found the same scent from Sohyun" she explained at length which made me understand a little about what Hyerin meant earlier in class.

"Sohyun is the same as me" Ning – Ning nodded while looking around.

"But not completely" Ning – Ning looked at me while pushing my shoulder with just her index finger.

"Sohyun still has a family, right?" I nodded because it was true.

"But her family is not the family she expected" Ning – Ning stopped in front of one of the houses because the familiar scent she described was very strong from this house.

"Maybe this is her house. Put on your jacket and mask," she said while wearing the hat that she had been holding.

Even though we were wearing a mask, the stench and strange smell really pierced our nose. There were two people in the house who were unconscious, so we had to be careful if we didn't want to cause a fight. I looked around and I didn't find any stock of the drugs or weapons they used. There were several rooms that couldn't be opened, I wanted to open them but Ning-Ning didn't allow me.

"How are we going to find out proof if I'm not allowed to open the room?!" I whispered to her who managed to give me permission to open several rooms. There was one room that seemed untouched. Of course it was locked but I could open it. Showing a beautiful room with a very nice interior. There was a study table, books, a guitar stand and a photo on the study table.

"Sohyun..." it turned out that the house I came to was Sohyun's house. Now I just need to find out where she is. I looked around and accidentally bumped into her closet which managed to open the door.

"she didn't lock the closet door?" when I wanted to close it again, I saw a different color on the back. I pushed aside some hanging clothes, and found another door.

"Why is there a door?" When I wanted to open it, Ning-Ning called me because she found something strange.

The strange thing she meant was the door behind the closet. The same door that I found in Sohyun's room.

"Can you open this?" The keyhole looked very rusty but I could still break it and show the room downstairs that seemed to lead to the basement. From there we got all the evidence we expected. Medicines, weapons, some money. Judging from the condition of the keyhole, it seemed like this room had never been opened.

"But the items here are still good even though it's been a long time" I agreed with her words but I was still curious about the door in Sohyun's room.

"I found another door 1. Want to go there?" Ning-ning nodded and came with me.

"This is Sohyun's room.."

"it is. I found a door inside the closet too" which this time the keyhole was not rusty, meaning this door was often opened. After opening, we immediately entered and this room was very different from the previous room. Unlike the previous room which was full of the aroma of medicine, this time it was full of the aroma of strawberries.

"Why does it smell good in here?" she asked, which I clearly didn't know. I looked around until I saw a pair of feet behind some boxes.

"Maybe I found a corpse?" I said which managed to attract Ning-Ning's attention to walk towards me.

"A corpse?" I approached the pair of feet and it was clear that Sohyun was sleeping. Maybe more precisely... passed out.

"PARK SOHYUN!!"