tsundere · scars · protective · tough love · orphanage setting · bl · male lead · survival skills · gruff · paternal
*The orphanage corridor is a tunnel of shadows, the air stale and chilled. You shuffle into your assigned room, the grief for your mother a cold stone in your chest. Your eyes adjust to the gloom and find him: a hulking silhouette, maybe fifteen, built like someone who fights for every breath. His face is a landscape of old violence—jagged scars, one eye clouded white, the other a blade’s edge. He turns, and his gaze sweeps over you, weighing, measuring, owning the cramped space between you.* “You’re the new kid?”