Second chances! [YiZhan FanFiction]✔️

Chapter 15

It has been 8 years since she moved to Seoul and little YueYue has now become a 14 year old teenager, good in school and with many friends and she was in love for the first time. As a loving father, Zhan had been really worried until he met her boyfriend for the first time, he reminded him a bit of himself. A sweet boy with very good grades and a good family background. Zhan was still single and intended to stay that way. He had tried dating for a while, but the spark never left him, so he left it as it was. Every now and then he met someone, they slept together and then went their separate ways. At 32 years of age, Zhan was too young to give up on love altogether, but he was sure there would be no one left for whom his heart would beat faster.

Zhan had been really lucky with his boss. This lovable old man was not only nice to him, but also very caring. Sometimes both seemed like father and son. His boss himself had never had the luck to experience what it was like to be a father. But when he met Zhan, he had treated him like a son. Whenever both of them had to go on a business trip, YueYue stayed at home with his boss' wife and YueYue called them grandma and grandpa. Zhan travelled the world with his boss and even though the work was often hard, he was happy that he had made this decision. "Oh Zhan, please don't forget that on Monday, a company from Beijing will come here for the meeting. If you're uncomfortable, you can take the day off." His boss had told him but Zhan refused.

Sometime shortly after Zhan started working for his boss, Zhan had to work overtime. During a break, he accessed his old email inbox and found hundreds of emails. Most of them were advertisements, a few reminders about upcoming celebrations at his old company and then there were 58 emails from Yibo. He hadn't dared to open one, his hands were shaking when he read the name of his old boss. Subject matter like, "Where are you? Come on, Zhan! Please come back. And others stood there and the pain he thought he had overcome hit him again and with full force. He wanted to read the emails, but he couldn't. His body didn't do what he wanted and instead he deleted everything unread and threw up afterwards.

He sat on the floor of the toilet and cried bitterly. His stomach rebelled and his heart hurt. He still missed Yibo with every cell in his body and he wanted to see him again, but he also knew that Yibo had betrayed him and left him alone, that he ignored Zhan and his ex-boyfriend told him that this was Yibo's way. Yibo would only arrive when he felt like it and otherwise he would ignore him. And as he was sitting there now, a pile of misery, his boss came to him and found him there. Huddled together in the toilet and crying. He told his boss everything, from the death of his wife, the loneliness afterwards, the hope for a second chance for love, to the end of his story with Yibo.

Without comment his boss had listened to everything and then held him in his arms until Zhan calmed down. Afterwards they drove to a bar and got drunk and since that day, both of them were like father and son and his father boss always looked after him. He wouldn't let anyone come and hurt Zhan again. And that's why his boss had told him he could take a day off. But Zhan refused, it was the OPQ company and Zhan didn't know any of them. And Zhan was right, because when the meeting came, there was no one he had ever seen. The company made a deal with his boss and then they were gone. Nothing happened, everything was the same. It had been 8 years now and Zhan didn't think about Yibo very much anymore, just once in a while when he noticed certain things and remembered them and he was sure Yibo was the same. If anything, because it was Yibo who wanted to get rid of him.

Three more months passed when his boss told him that it was necessary to fly to Beijing and work with OPQ for a few weeks. This time he could not tell Zhan that he could take time off. Because as a personal assistant he had to accompany his boss. But Zhan was not worried, Beijing is big and 8 years had passed since then. So why should he worry now. Sometimes Zhan wondered if his boss was exaggerating his concern for him. "Alright, book us two hotel rooms and a flight. We leave on Sunday." His boss gave in after Zhan made it clear that he had no reservations and would be happy to return to his home country after 8 years. He was more worried that he would no longer be able to speak his own mother tongue. Because even at home he and YueYue only spoke Korean, he had no Chinese friends there and with his mother and his sister he rarely spoke and when they did, they talked and he listened.

It always seemed strange to him when he heard himself speaking Chinese, as if it were a completely foreign language to him. When his boss told him he was glad he spoke Chinese because he could communicate in it, Zhan had to swallow. When they first met the CEO's of OPQ, they all spoke English and Zhan didn't even think of using his native language. In retrospect, he had been a little embarrassed. After he had booked and prepared everything, Zhan went home and told YueYue about the trip. She had forgotten Yibo for a long time and so he was glad that she did not react worried like his boss. "Take me with you this time, OK?" She said to him. First he wanted to refuse but since she is on holiday and it is her home as well, he gave in and booked a long flight for his daughter and a room for her. At her age she should not have to share a room with her father.

On Sunday afternoon the three of them flew to Beijing. They arrived, got a rental car and drove to the hotel where Zhan had booked rooms for them. Zhan and YueYue then drove to YueYue's grandparents, who had sold their house and bought an apartment in Beijing two years ago, and visited them. They offered Zhan and YueYue to live with them for the duration of their stay in Beijing, but both turned them down. YueYue wanted to be in the hotel, probably because of the cute bellboy she met there and Zhan had to stay close to his boss. Zhan thought about calling Chuyue and asking him if they wanted to meet, but after Chuyue found a boyfriend four years ago, the contact broke off. He became less and less and less until at some point Chuyue didn't call back or answered when Zhan wrote to him.

Zhan thought this was a great pity, as they had always been good friends and he could not understand how a relationship with someone could make all these years forgotten. But he also had no choice but to accept it, he had often tried to reestablish contact but failed each time, so he gave it up. And it was similar with his other friends, most of whom he lost contact with shortly after he moved and the others followed a little later.