Sympathies [Mission]

Jian's fondness for orphans had been remarked upon many times in the past. They were some of the few people who actually wound up getting a huge section of Jian's pay-cheque. However, what made orphans even more tragic was one simple thing; war-orphans. These people hadn't lost their mothers and fathers quietly in the night, they often had seen them go out through blood and fire (surprisingly close to literally) and would have that memory scarred onto their subconscious for the rest of their life. 

So, when an orphanage sent out requests among the people looking for those who would be willing to help deal with some of the children, Jian had jumped at the chance. Well, not literally jumped, that would have drawn too much attention. Rather, he applied and made it very clear that he had strong sympathies for the children even despite his nationality.

The issue with his nationality was that these children had lost their parents to the Kou Empire. There were many people nowadays who mistook someone who came from Kou as being someone who worked for Kou. His origin was his persona in their world view. Which, inherently, was stupid. It was like saying all Reim was made out of gladiators. 

Though, maybe this would be a good thing. If they saw someone from Kou as a friend rather than an enemy, maybe they wouldn't foster a racial hatred when they grew up. That was the best that he could currently hope for.

When arriving at the orphanage, Jian quickly found himself a little disappointed. A part of his mind that held an optimistic streak had hoped that they would at least be living in good conditions However, this orphanage looked like a shit heap. Since the people who were running it were begging for help, he very much doubted that they were keeping this place as a shitheap on purpose, but it was clearly lacking in money and backers. He would have to take personal note of that himself later. 

For now, all he could do was focus on the kids. Walking into the building, he was quickly ushered to the communal room for the kids, and found his opinions being backed by facts. These kids looked miserable, many of them talking in sad monotones as if their heart had been taken when their parents were. Well, at least, most of them looked that way. In the corner of the room, four red-haired children who Jian couldn't help but speculate were at least half-fanalis seemed angry, and took it out on him. 

Before he'd even said a word, the fanalis started throwing their toys at his head, each one a wooden model of something and yelling at him. He had to do something to disarm this situation and do it quickly... so he caught the toys that were thrown at him. 

The kids seemed surprised at this action of his, but were even more surprised as he began to juggle them effortlessly. two, three... five at a time, and all the time he continued moving around the room, almost acting like a clown. The kids started cheering half-heartedly, but as he sped up they actually seemed to get more invested in it. 

"hello kids, my name is Jian Yu. I'm here to talk to you about life."

A few hours later, Jian was amazed at how well everything had gone. From the moment he'd walked in he was sure that there was going to be a high level of resistance, or that he was going to find it impossible to be able to cheer these kids up, but it seemed that all they needed was a good distraction from their troubles. Of course, his personal style of distraction was something that very few adults could do properly. 

He wasn't entirely sure how it'd happened, but the main parts of what he remembered about his "routine" was juggling the toys, something about backflips, telling a few jokes for the older kids who were less impressed by acts of sheer physical prowess and by the end of it there was a beaming smile on every single kids face. That was when he'd started to bring in the more serious thing. 

These kids needed to know that being upset was natural, that being lonely was understandable, and that whatever they were going through they weren't going through it alone. They had each other, they had their carers, and if they just asked they'd have him. He'd expected to get a few people conflicting with his ideal, but it seemed that all they needed was a good pat on the back and tehy were feeling better. 

Stowing the pay for his little "help" in his back-pocket, Jian began to move onto his next job. He wasn't sure of what he was going to do now, but he knew one thing for sure - it probably wasn't going to be as rewarding as making children happy. 

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