Truth and Dare

Truth 1 (Shi Qingxuan)

While the both of them wait for the next text to come in, they each do their own thing in comfortable silence.  Shi Qingxuan continues stretching their body to work out some kinks they got in their sleep, while He Xuan sits and meditates.  He developed this habit of meditating to calm himself when he started working.  It helps to temper the bouts of anger and stress in his life.  However, the serenity is broken by the sound of one of the phones pinging.

Opening his eyes, he sees Shi Qingxuan has heard it too.  Shrugging, he gets up to find which phone made the noise.  Checking his phone before Shi Qingxuan's.  He then holds out Shi Qingxuan's phone to them, saying, "It's for you." From the corner of his eye he sees them take in a deep breath before taking the phone from his hold.  He watches as they open the phone and read over the text.  Therefore, he immediately gets concerned when they turn pale and utter, "What kind of messed up question is this?" He doesn't stop himself from asking, "What does it say?" Shi Qingxuan doesn't say anything before thrusting the phone in his face.

Unknown Number:

Truth: What is the worst suffering in this world to you?

Reading this, a memory of a dice game with an ulterior motive in a broken down temple automatically pops in his head.  He forces himself to stifle a groan, no wonder the dare sounded familiar.  This is Hua Cheng's way of getting back at them for the dare and both their overly offensive questions.  Even if he knows past Shi Qingxuan did not mean to make any offence.  Truly, Hua Cheng is not one to let even the most minor of offensives go.  Especially with it comes to his precious highness.

Not that he can explain this to Shi Qingxuan without one, looking like he's crazy, and two, Hua Cheng's blackmail hanging over his head.  So he pushes the phone away from his face before commenting, "That's some question." Shi Qingxuan just grimaces as they put the phone down and begin fiddling with the hem of their shirt.  After around a minute of silence, He Xuan informs them, "You do remember that you need to answer the question, right?" Shi Qingxuan pouts while whining, "Don't rush me, it's a hard question to think about." He Xuan sighs but leaves the other to think about their answer.

Finally after a while, they clear their throat, "Okay, I'm ready to answer and..." They trail of before clearing their throat again.  He Xuan can tell from their body language that this question is making them uncomfortable.  To hopefully help calm them, he places a hand on their shoulder and tells them simply, "Breath." Not surprisingly, Shi Qingxuan listens and takes a couple of deep breaths to calm themselves.  Once they are calm they say loud enough for the camera to pick up, "The worst suffering for me, is my family and friends disappearing from my life and being helpless to stop it from happening."  He sees their eyes begin to to water with tears as they continue, "It's the fact that even though I try so hard to have them stay, it's never enough and they just leave me.  Never talking to me again and treating me as if I was just a random stranger whenever we happen to run into each other.  And somehow making it see like it was my fault they abandoned me in the first place." A tear runs down their cheek as they finish.

He Xuan rubs their shoulder with his thumb in a gesture for comfort as they silently let the tears pour from their eyes.  After a while they sniffle a bit and wipe their face, "Sorry, just thinking about it gets me emotional."  He Xuan hums before daring to ask, "Want to talk about it?" It takes a bit before Shi Qingxuan sighs.  They then say, "When Ge kicked me out, I told you that he broke all contact with me for a while, right?" He Xuan nods, before Shi Qingxuan confesses, "Well what I didn't tell you was that, a couple of months after that I was out shopping and ended up running into Ge.  But when I tried to say hi, he pretended like he didn't hear me.  When I tried to get him to talk to me, he just sidestepped me and left me floundering in place.  I was so embarrassed that I just wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear." The tears return once more after they finish.  He Xuan doesn't stop them as they slump onto his side.  He just moves his arm to drape across their shoulders.

As he holds them, he stews in silent rage at the actions of Shi Wudu.  Just because Shi Qingxuan doesn't have a static gender, doesn't mean that the only family member they have left has any right to treat them the way Shi Wudu has.  In this life the hatred for the elder Shi brother has only increased.  Not just because of the past memories of what that monster did to him, but it is also because of the emotional abuse the man has put Shi Qingxuan through.  Especially because after a year of radio silence, the bastard keeps popping up at random times to hang around Shi Qingxuan before disappearing again when things don't go as he wants.

The hardest thing is the fact Shi Qingxuan still loves their brother.  So seeing them get hurt on the hope that their brother will one day finally accept them hurts He Xuan in turn.  He understands that blood is thicker than water, but this isn't healthy.  After all, the last time their brother visited and left, Shi Qingxuan ended up drinking at least three bottles of wine when they hung out at his apartment.  Where the other proceeded to ball their eyes out, and mumble something about wanting to die before passing right out on his couch.

All he can do now is be patient with Shi Qingxuan and help them heal.  When they realize that their brother isn't worth their bleeding heart, everything will get better.  At least that's what he hopes.  So until then, he'll be there for Shi Qingxuan.  After all, the least he can do to make up for the past will be by being the shoulder that Shi Qingxuan needs to cry on.