Now, I know what you may be thinking, Zihao, how did you end up harboring three other young runaways, you've adopted as your younger brothers? Well, I'll tell you.

After being kicked out from my Grandmother's, and the visit with my Mom, I was in the deepest pit of sorrow you could possibly imagine. Maybe I still am, I've just grown to deal with it after a year.

I'd spend most of my days wandering around, visiting shops, even though I couldn't buy anything. By then the small amount of money I had had run out. I was hungry and bitter at the world.

Occasionally, older women would stop me and ask if I needed anything, I guess I looked worse than I thought, and, if I could go back in time I would have taken their help. But I didn't. I had the mindset of "I don't need anybody." Even though I realize now that that was stupid.

I knew I had to get some type of food, but how would I without any money?

Stealing.

I didn't want to resort to that, I never did, and sometimes, still now, I feel guilty, but, I had to take care of myself.

Not sure how to start, I wandered around a small fruit stand set up in the street. The owner had asked if I needed any help and I politely declined. I waited until the man turned his back to me, then I started stuffing my pockets and shirt with as much produce as I could.

In hindsight, now that I'm thinking about it, it was idiotic of me to steal from goddamn produce stand. Yeah, a few apples and pears were supposed to keep me from starving. I walked away from the stand as least suspicious as possible and ended up in an alleyway to avoid anyone seeing me. I looked at the food I had stolen and was quite disappointed in myself. But the disappointment didn't last long as the hunger took over and I devoured almost everything I had stolen.

It was only after I had stopped filling my face that I heard something. Something that sounded faint and soft, like... crying?

I took a minute to listen and sure enough, it was, in fact, crying. I wasn't sure if I should walk away and leave this person alone, but I had a conscience, and by God I'm glad I did. I picked up the last two apples and walked in the direction I thought the crying was coming from.

I looked behind a dumpster as the sounds had gotten louder, and there he was. Little 14-year-old Donghai, with his knees to his chest, sobbing his eyes out. Thinking back to that image hurts. Now that Donghai has aged a year and I haven't seen him cry since. He's tough, tougher than I was.

At first he didn't like me, I could tell, but gradually as the two of us became closer and I taught him the little bit I knew about being on the streets, like how to not fucking freeze, I think he grew to respect me.

Over time, I found out that he was in the same boat as me. His Mother was in prison. I never asked why, and I still don't really know. He ran away from living with his Father due to feeling suffocated. Things just weren't the same after his mother was gone, which I can understand. He needed to get away, and he did, and never went back. His Father was a great man from what Donghai described, he tried to take care of Donghai to the best of his ability, he just didn't know how to deal with a troubled teen who had lost the Mother he thought he knew.

=

Next to come was Xiaobo. Who, at the time of our first meeting, was only 12.

He was a little less keen on the idea of living with Donghai and myself. Even though it obviously benefited him.

Safety in numbers they say.

We had seen him walking the streets and alleyways for the longest time, and though Donghai and I were more "fuck you, I live for myself and myself only" types of guys, it concerned the both of us since he looked so young. We live on the streets, we aren't heartless. We asked him if he had a home we could walk him back to. He told us to fuck off, then ran away.

Later that night, after our interaction with him, we watched Xiaobo sneak into "our" office building from the roof.

"The little fucker's trying to get into our food!" I remember Donghai practically screaming. That sentence still sticks out in my mind because of how comical it was at the time. We walked down the rickety old stairs to the floor just below the roof, and, just as Donghai had said. Xiaobo was trying to force his way into the food stash we had created.

To make a long story short, we promised to let him have some food, on the condition that he didn't steal from us. He agreed, reluctantly, but he agreed nonetheless.

Xiaobo would come to our building once a week and take just enough food to get by for that amount of time. Donghai and I were still really worried about him being alone all the time. Especially at his age and size, he was so small at the time (and frankly, he still is) it'd be so easy to just pick him up and do God knows what with him. So, like the kinda good people we are, we forced him to stay with us. We threatened to stop giving him food if he didn't comply. And of course, after some arguing and fighting, he said he'd stay.

Again, I could tell he didn't like Donghai or myself at first. He was really bitchy. But, as the months rolled by, he opened up to reveal the sweet kid we know today.

He was a quiet boy, and still is. To this day we still don't really know too much about why he ran away. All we know is that his Father left his family when he was really young. What happened to his Mother? I couldn't tell you.

=

And last but not least, Feng. I think meeting that boy messed all three of us up.

One day, the other three and myself were scouting out some potential stores, shops, and stands we could take from when night hit. After searching for a good hour, we decided to take a break and rest a bit. We sat on the sideway and talked until we heard a mildly concerning conversation between a Father and, who we thought at the time was his young, 9-year-old Daughter.

"But Daddy! I don't want to get my ears pierced!" We watched the scene unfold out of pure curiosity. We didn't have T.V, therefore, we had nothing better to do than eavesdrop on other people's drama.

"I told you that's not your decision to make, Princess." The man sneered, grabbing onto the young girl's shoulder.

"But earrings are for girls!" She huffed, looking like she was about to cry. I remember Donghai looking over to me and laughing, due to the four piercings I had and still have in each ear. "Mommy says you only treat me like a girl cause you didn't want a boy." All three of us looked at each other.

"That's a little fucked up." Xiaobo said.

"Well, she is just a kid, maybe we're misunderstanding something, we don't know their life." I said. The older man bent down to eye level with the girl, squeezing her shoulders tighter.

"That's right now, come on." The man said, dragged the girl away, presumably to a piercing shop.

"I really hope we heard something wrong." Donghai spoke, staring at the Father and "Daughter" as they walked away.

Not so long after, when Donghai, Xiaobo, and I were making our way back to the office building, we saw little Feng sitting outside the entrance, playing with a little Hot Wheels car.

We try not to talk about Feng's past to him too often, we got him to tell us a little bit about what happened, then, we never brought it up again. The poor thing went through so much we didn't want to traumatize him anymore.

When Feng was born, his parents expected a girl. But then he came out into the world as a small little boy with the cutest giggle. His father, outraged, threatened to leave if his wife didn't give birth to a girl. Scared, she tried her hardest, but it never worked. Not for a girl, not for a boy. Feng was their only child. In the meantime, like a psychopath would, Feng's father treated him as a girl, got his ears pierced, made him wear frilly dresses, forced him to grow out his hair and such. But Feng hated it. He hated seeing how upset his father was whenever he did anything remotely close to being "boy-ish".

After he started staying with us, we made sure to set things straight and make him comfortable. Xiaobo managed to find some rusty, dull scissors for me to cut Feng's hair with. It didn't look that good but he was happy with it so that's all that really mattered. We gave him some clothes and he was ecstatic. It was heartbreaking to see him get so excited over being allowed to wear boy's clothing.

At one point, I remember we asked him if he wanted his earrings gone. He looked at me and brought his little hand to my ear, and spoke proudly.

"No. If Ge-ge wears them, then they're cool. I wanna be like Ge-ge." Now when I tell you I almost fucking cried right then and there-

Take that, Donghai. At least someone thinks they're cool.

So yeah, in short, that's how I adopted these three dumbasses as my own. And truthfully speaking, if I didn't have them with me, I probably would have given up by now and died on a sidewalk somewhere. But they need me, and I need them.

They saved me just as much as I saved them.