Title: Red
Characters: kid!Shen
Shen feels sometimes that there is an unyielding wall inside him somewhere, obstinately weathering every cold, pitiless wind. Sometimes he feels certain he would simply collapse without it, even when he's certain it's the cause of all his problems: it's become his only support, the only thing that keeps him alive.
He is different. He doesn't look like other children. He doesn't resemble his parents, and he never will. He doesn't want to accept it- he wants to find the one to blame, make them hurt and regret what they let happen to him.
More and more, however, he is realizing there is no one to blame. It was simply an inexplicable, unavoidable misfortune that just so happened to land on him, and he will instead turn his ire on the unfairness of it all. When the wall does finally crumble, when he accepts that nothing can be done and no revenge can be exacted for a perfectly natural unnatural event, it is not a letting go of a burden so much as it is an embracing of a deeply-rooted despair.
A/N: This actually came from a writing prompt so um. Not sure what to rate it or what to label it under, as far as genre and all that :|
