A Son Of Two Dad's

Broken things

(If this first part is a repeat from the last chapter, go down halfway. When I was looking through a chapter was missing and I couldn't seem to fix it so I added it to this chapter so it exists again.)

When Qi Xiaotian was six, he learned that he wasn't like the other kids. He had trouble focusing, sitting still, and was always falling over something or tripping or breaking things.

At first, he'd been fostered by a couple he'd thought were nice, but it didn't take long for them to get fed up with him as well, annoyed when he kept humming all the time or falling over. On the third month with them, he'd accidentally fallen off his chair and smashed one of their plates on the way down, making a mess and causing him to get locked in his room for a whole two days! It got worse then, too. Sometimes they'd hit him, sometimes they wouldn't let him eat. Once, he'd had a glass thrown at him, and still had the scar on his elbow to prove it.

Even though Qi Xiaotian tried to behave, tried to get on their good side, eventually, they took him back, and that was when he realized that no one would ever want him. Not even his own original parents had wanted him, he'd heard the other kids laugh often. Telling him that he was so useless that they left him there so they didn't have to deal with him.

Because he was a kid, Qi Xiaotion refused to believe them, telling himself that there must have been a good reason why they didn't want him. Why they abandoned him.

At ten, he stopped believing in those childish hopes and dreams, and he was adopted by another couple, a couple who were strict and very disappointed in him all the time. It was probably his own fault, though. He just- needed to learn how to do better. That was all.

They must have been good people because they rarely even hit him and sometimes they'd let him eat even when he misbehaved, much kinder than the last people that had been stuck with him. Even they gave up on him eventually though, like everyone else, and every time they yelled his name angrily, locking him in his room, he felt a little bit of him die on the inside.

When they yelled his name, so much disappointment and anger in it, sometimes Qi Xiaotian thought he remembered someone else saying it, but different. Their tone was always soft and gentle in his memories like they actually loved him. He didn't remember it well, but the sadness that took him, the hollow feeling that had a home in his heart made him ache for something he didn't even remember having.

Qi Xiaotian met his first friend when he was thirteen, a girl called Mei, who was awesome and didn't mind his clumsy nature one bit, or the way he was always cold. She was rich and her parents were also disappointed by her, something they both bonded over. Mei was great, and Qi Xiaotian didn't feel like such a failure around her.

Though he did always keep a smile on his face, never once talking about his past or the way he would sometimes go to bed with bruises.

At fifteen, his parents finally gave up on him completely, chucking him out of the house with nothing but his clothes and shoes. He didn't tell Mei at first, determined to keep everything the same, determined to show he could be useful, wasn't a burden.

They found a restaurant they both loved some time that year. A noodle shop that was cheap enough that Qi Xiaotian didn't feel bad about borrowing money from Mei every once in a while to sit and enjoy a meal with her.

Another one of the regulars, a man named Tang, wrote and read books there often, and one day Qi Xiaotian had managed to get the courage to ask him what he was reading about, which turned out to be one of the best things he'd ever done, actually, as Tang was more than happy to begin rambling on about a great, legendary warrior named Monkey king, who was powerful and amazing.