[Completed]
As choices, rules, timeless deeds, and beginnings attract then push Zhan away between two peaks of bliss, he learns: It's easy to fall, but harder to love. It's one thing to spend a star-aligned winter, but something else to bear the war...
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Where Yibo spots Zhan two days after the flight—two days of only a handful of texts and a last worrying one that said I told my parents—is on the other end of the hallway, running up the stairs.
"I'll be back," he mumbles to his classmates, making a sprint through to him.
The last conversation they had before Zhan fell apart has been continuously picking at his mind. He knew Zhan didn't mean when he said they wouldn't last. He knows if it were up to the two of them, Zhan is the sort of person who would be the one making the effort for the one last time. He gives that much. He cares that much.
But that didn't mean the sudden confrontation of the possibility felt nice. That didn't mean he could carry on after hearing the guy Zhan used to be in love with confess.
That didn't mean he'll be fine when Zhan is out of reach.
Yibo knows what it is to need space. Yibo also knows what it is to shut away. What's happening now is a concerning in-between, that left him doubtful and . . . afraid.
Grabbing Zhan's wrist makes him and a couple of people around him jump. The first instinct was to search for any visible evidence of violence on his face, on all the skin his uniform exposed: there's none. But that doesn't mean—he has to be sure—
"Yibo?" Zhan asks.
That's when he realizes that he had no idea what he wanted to do next.
"Uh," Yibo struggles. "A minute?" Zhan gives a split agitated glance at the people around. "Somewhere else?"
"Yeah." Zhan is quick to agree. "Not downstairs."
"Got it," Yibo says, ushering him upstairs.
The guarded looks Zhan gives the people they meet on the way, the restless scratches—they're all hard to miss. Zhan's warm palms were taken over by a chill: his most obvious restless tick as far as Yibo knew. Finally, when he gets them to an empty classroom is when the tension he held himself with reduces a notch.
Yibo closes the door behind them and turns, gazes meeting. There's a pause.
Yibo sighs. "Sorry . . . shit timing?" The thing is, he says it out loud, but he can't pinpoint the facts he based that conclusion. Sneaking in school isn't entirely new to them. But somehow, Yibo knows that this is, in fact, shit timing.
"No," Zhan rasps out, almost obligatorily. "Not like it's the first time." He shrugs, laughing a little.
"Where were you running off to?"
Zhan drops his gaze. A small sad smile appears on his face as if defeated. "Away from Mingyu." He releases a sigh. "All the same still."
Not shit timing?
His jaws are clenched, it's hard to say when he does that. But Yibo knows that if he brushes a hand on his cheek he'll feel the firm bones taut underneath.
