Let Me Chase You (Completed)

Chapter 29: Just a Coward

"She's been in your life for a very long time. She's the only other person who you get along with outside of your family."

"You're also on that list," Yibo retorted, pulling on Xiao Zhan's hand to make sure the man doesn't ignore that fact. Such childlike acts put a gentle smile on Xiao Zhan's face. Yibo let out a sigh of relief for his unmanly act calmed the tension that was building up.

Xiao Zhan nodded his head in acknowledgment but continued on his track of destruction. "You're family likes her, enough to plan a secret wedding behind your back. You know each other well, work in the same industry, live in the same world."

Yibo's body slowly wilted with each sentence. He doesn't want to know where Xiao Zhan was steering this conversation.

"I'm different. I don't know how to tolerate the constant watchful gazes; having my privacy violated and become public gossip; fearing that simple actions will cause upheaval to the Jiang's." Xiao Zhan lamented and looked at Yibo with a determined gaze. Xiao Zhan has made a decision and there was nothing Yibo could do to change it. Yibo understood.

"It's different. It's a lot. It's too much."

There it was, the final verdict. Yibo dropped the grasp that had been dribbling down Xiao Zhan's finger and was only holding onto the very tip. He finally lost all of this strength and had to let go. What else was there to say? What else could he do? Xiao Zhan was right, he unlocked a side of Yibo that he has been resisting to acknowledge because it would make him feel weak, needy, pathetic.

"I do," Yibo finally confessed after opening and closing his lips like a drowning fish. He too has been left without an escape route.

"I do like her, but not love, never love," Yibo stressed, not sure if it's for Xiao Zhan or him trying to reassure himself. "Before you came, she has been someone that I'm at ease with. I don't know when, but at some point in time, I didn't mind having her around."

Yibo started to reminisce about his memories with Cheng Xiao and only now, at this moment, did he realized how important her presence was in his life. "Dramas, shows, any events; having her there... I felt relieved to have someone I'm comfortable with nearby.'

He lifted his head to look at Xiao Zhan, but his eyes were distant as the rims turned red and tears threatened to fall as he confessed his darkest secret to Xiao Zhan: To himself. "You're right. This lifestyle, it is a lot, it is too much. I don't love her. I just never let her go because I wanted her by my side. Someone who understood this world, someone who was willing to linger around." I'm just a selfish bastard.

It was all too much. The past twenty-four hours have been nothing but a typhoon that rushed into their lives, destroying everything it touched. The two men were pushed into a position that made them unveil a side of themselves that they were planning to bring to their graves. They've each gained the courage to speak up, but what good was bravery when it unveiled their foolishness. Perhaps it was a battle that needed to be fought. A battle where victory was not the goal, simply walking away with their lives in hand. It was borderline kamikaze.

Yibo stood up slowly, absent of the fluidity that he normally possessed on stage. He no longer had the gallantry to face Xiao Zhan ever again. Thus, he turned away and left the bloody battlefield.

He cracked the apartment door open, bringing in a wave of fresh air that washed over the deadly atmosphere. It was a strange moment in which the universe was blatantly telling them that their revelations needed to happen and Yibo taking a step over that door frame will be a proper action, a good decision for both of their futures. Yet, Yibo lingered and Xiao Zhan watched.