Azahar

Chapter 2

For months they had to move around trying to look for a safe place to finally settle in, it was a rocky path but in the end they found a very peaceful place, it was his mother hometown. She had been reluctant to go back but after their despair it was the only place where they could live quietly.

Minho didn't understand why she had avoided ever coming back. The moment he stepped in and saw with his own eyes the small coast town he fell in love with the lovely place, so full of life unlike his old place. The first place his eyes landed on was on the enormous church up the hill, by far was the most beautiful house of God he had ever seen and as his mother he couldn't wait to see it from inside, for the first time he felt his soul relax and allowed himself to breathe again.

After being around for months without a ceiling on their heads and barely eating, in places that looked out of a horror movie, this was a change of pace. Minho felt reassurance, the more they walked in the more people that welcomed them, many remembering whom his mother was, from an outsider perspective it would had been a normal scene of an old villager coming back home after a long time, but the boy could see the woman tensing up everytime she crossed a word with one of the villagers.

Since very little he had been an observant boy, so in silence he watched her every move and the villagers' expression to see their true intentions and he could see that those masks were concealing something, they weren't as kind as they looked at first sight, perhaps now he was starting to understand why his mother was so reluctant to go back to that place, the place was full of lies. There was nothing he hated more than lies.

Since very little he learnt that lies only help bad things to happen, and so he promised to himself to never lie to anyone no matter what and this could be the reason why they had to leave their home. Looking now at his mother he regretted ever opening his big mouth and hated how he could not lie, if he had bitten his lip at that moment perhaps they would still be the perfect family he thought they were.

But deep down Minho knew that he would have broken in the end, that secret would have eaten him bit by bit until nothing was left of him. So, for this part he felt relieved that he was honest with his parent and his mother lovingly accepted him because as she said back then "No matter what, you will still be my cute baby, Min" the boy could feel his eyes sting at the memory and tried to regain his composure to not break down right there.

In a day they had already seen completely the town and had moved into their cozy house, so now they were heading towards the enormous church over the hill, as he followed behind his mother he could not stop feeling a bit overwhelmed by the size and the thought of finally knowing the other villagers at least by sight.

Now standing at the stoned stairs he looked up just to feel like a small particle of dust, he snapped back to reality when he heard someone stepping strongly on the stairs helping an elder man go up. His brown eyes locked onto the figure of the young male with the broad back and if in a daze he stood there staring at the boy that was now turning to step down and help the elder woman now probably. The moment the boy turned around and Minho was able to take a glance at his face he felt like a bucket of icy water has been thrown at him, the eyes of the male were void of any emotion and so they were void of any colour, a dark abysm was what he was now looking at and he shivered in fear at the meaning of those dull eyes.

It was then that his mother placed a small hand over his arm softly snapping him back to reality, he turned his face to look at her "Let's go in" he kindly smiled and nodded before holding her hand.

They walked closer and then Minho gazed around to find the rail of the stairs, so it would be easier for her to step up those big stairs, he still stood by her side holding her hand in support. Minho knew she will get upset if he tried to protect her way too much, she wanted for her son to live happily without worries and didn't want to chain him down with her, so Minho tried to act as if what was going on wasn't affecting him one bit, no matter how much it was hurting.