lost in the fire./ yangdery

03 | daydreamer

yangyang gets home and immediately heads up to his bedroom. he busies himself with small tasks, putting away his laundry that renjun kindly folded up and left on his bed, washing up the dishes that he's let build up in his room for the last week;  he even sweeps the hallway outside. he does all of this just in the hopes that kunhang gets back to him. but the phone call doesn't come that night. nor the next day, or the next. 

yangyang begins to lose hope. maybe whatever was making the phone work has now broken. maybe kunhang doesn't even want to speak to him anymore. he just wants to dial the wong household's number in and call him, but unfortunately, they discovered that even that doesn't work. he's just starting to think his newfound interest in space and the facts he's collected to tell kunhang are going to waste, when the phone starts ringing again. 

by this point, the sun has set and the silver moon shines bright over yangyang's house. the phone is just too loud, and yangyang lunges for the phone to shut it up (even though it seems like renjun can't hear it). 

"kunhang!" he exclaims into the receiver, a bright smile lighting up his face.

"sorry i didn't call yangyang, there was a family emergency." kunhang says, and he sounds absolutely awful. his broken voice catches in his throat, and his nose appears to be blocked because he sounds funny. yangyang's smile immediately disappears

"what happened?" he asks, and kunhang is wrecked by a sob. 

"i lost my mom." he says, and yangyang doesn't know what to do. if he had kunhang in front of him, he'd just hold him, reassure him that it will be okay, even if it doesn't fee like it. he'd promise that he'd be there for his friend the whole time. but all of that sounds disingenuous over the phone.

"i'm sorry." he says, and they stay quiet until kunhang settles down, just sniffling instead of full blown crying.

"i'll be okay." he says, voice tinged with bitterness. yangyang wants to give him a hug. 

"can i do anything for you?" yangyang asks, and kunhang sighs. he can imagine him shrugging.

"i don't think so. a fifty year time barrier will do that." he half heartedly jokes. yangyang admires his ability to do so so soon after a tragedy to be honest.

"i feel so guilty." kunhang admits. yangyang finds it fascinating, and carefully presses for answers.

"i didn't treat her as well as i could." kunhang says eventually, and he decides that's a good enough answer for such a strange confession. yangyang looks out into their back garden, seeing the pale moonlight flood the space. it illuminates the empty flowerbeds and the sad, dying grass. he spots a couple small mole mounds, which perks him up a little bit. he loves moles! he will have to check them out at some point. 

"yangyang? are you still there?" he hears kunhang say eventually, and he realises he has zoned out and ignored whatever kunhang just said.

"yeah, sorry. just spotted a couple dirt mole hills. i will be investigating them." he replies, and kunhang laughs shakily. 

"leave them alone, yangyang, the moles probably don't want to be disturbed." he says, and yangyang pouts. 

"but i love them." he reasons, but kunhang chides him. 

"they might not love you back." he replies.

"yet." yangyang adds, before launching into his list of cool space facts he wants to tell kunhang. surely he can cheer him up that way.

-

renjun pulls him into his room midway through the week.