Xiao Zhan is drowning.
Up till this moment he hasn't allowed himself to admit this, and it is only now that he realizes why.
He had a lifeline.
But as he stares down at his phone and the blank screen, all he can see is this lifeline slipping away.
He is furious, and he wants to call him back to yell at him.
I know that you're hurt that I didn't tell you... that you had to find out from others, but can't you see through me? You've always been able to. So why can't you see through me right now? Why can't you see through me enough to push your anger away? Why can't you see through me enough to know that I fucking need you right now?
Do I have to ask?
Do I have to fucking lay myself bare?
With you I've never had to before, so why do I fucking have to now?
He slips the phone back into his pocket and runs his hand through his hair. Then he forces himself to take deep breaths.
It's fine, he tells himself. I've handled things by myself in the past and I'll do it again.
It just hurts because this time around, he'd thought that he had the strength of two.
Perhaps Yibo will come around soon enough, and realize what he is doing.
He is a brat, as Xiao Zhan has pointed out in the past but this time around, he'd just expected him to see clearly.
To consider him beyond everything else, including his own annoyance.
With a shake of his head, he heads towards the door.
Just as he is about to pull it open however, there is a knock. He answers it and meets Nini waiting for him.
"What is it?" he asks, and she parts her lips to speak however she suddenly halts.
She is gazing up at him, and instantly he sees immense concern well up in her eyes.
"Are you alright?" she asks, and he immediately looks away from her. He walks onwards into the living room, and then takes his seat. She soon comes over. His hand is folded across his chest as he stares straight ahead, gazing at nothing in particular but he feels scalded. All over.
"Wang Yibo," she begins, and the very sound of that name makes his stomach churn bitterly. His heart however still flutters and at this, his eyes once again sting with tears.
"He just posted," Nini says and at this, Xiao Zhan's gaze shoots to hers.
Nini realizes the attached urgency to her statement so she completes it.
"It's an ad," she says quietly, and Xiao Zhan's heart deflates.
"This is a very opportune time for them because all the attention is on the both of you. There is no doubt that most of his pending endorsements are pushing to take advantage of the current exposure. They're probably willing to even pay more for it."
Xiao Zhan turns his gaze away from her.
He wants to leave the room but she will no doubt read all manner of things into it, so he remains seated and against his better judgement he picks up his phone.
He doesn't even realize what he is doing until he finds himself on Yibo's page.
It's a Colgate ad, and although his plan was to turn away, he finds himself clicking on the play button.
It plays aloud, and he doesn't care that Nini is watching him. He watches Yibo emotionlessly throughout the entire thing, and he cannot help but notice that his smile is forced through it all.
This makes him even more sad, and he is unable to stop himself from going towards the comments. The first one is all he needs to see and it is just as he had expected.
Everyone can see just how forced his expression is and given that it is a toothpaste ad where the majority of what he has to do is smile, the experience had been quite excruciating.
"Why force him to smile when you could have just allowed him to dance?" One of the comments reads. "He would have smiled then."
"They're idiots," another says. "They think that it is every horse that they can force to drink water."
"All I see is that he is unhappy," yet another says. "And can I blame him? Who would be when they're constantly surrounded by vipers. Xiao Zhan I hope you can see what you're doing to this child."
"Jeesh will you all never give Xiao Zhan a break? Why is it that everything that goes wrong with Yibo is attributed as his fault?"
As Xiao Zhan reads that last comment, his gaze and heart lingers on it.
"Why?" the question echoes in his mind. "Why indeed is it that every time a problem pops up that involves the both of them, he is always the chosen victim. And the chosen villain.
And this, he realizes has been his problem with Yibo from the start.
Compared to Yibo, his fate does indeed seem sour and at this thought, he cannot help the resentment that rises like bile within him.
This is why he has been wary of him, and this is why he has pushed him away for so long.
He rises to his feet then, and turns to Nini.
"I need the van," he says, and she is shocked at the request.
"What?"
"I want to go to Chongqing. There's no need for me to remain here any longer. We'll monitor the situation as best as we can virtually, so you return to Beijing for the time being."
She parts her lips to speak, but it takes her a little while longer to gather her thoughts.
"You're going to drive to Chongqing?"
"I can't possibly take a plane now can I?"
"It's eighteen hours."
"I'll get started in the morning."
With this, he turns around and begins to head back to his bedroom but she comes after him.
"Li Wei is going with you right?"
"No," he replies. "I need the time alone. I'll drive myself."
"Xiao Zhan," she calls and at the panic in her tone, he turns around to face her.
"Nini I'll be fine," he softens his tone. "I just want to go see my mother. My father mentioned that she's not coping well, so since I'm not doing anything here either way, why not just head back home?"
"It's a long drive," she finally says. "And I'm worried that you'll be too distracted."
"I'll be fine," he says, and then reaches out to gently squeeze her shoulder. "And I'll be careful."
After managing a smile, he continues back to his room but just before he shuts the door behind him, she speaks up again.
"I spoke to Yuehua," she says, her tone void of life.
"They said that their CEO is currently out of office so they cannot make any major decisions until she returns. After she does they'll get back to us."
"Of course," Xiao Zhan says and continues on his way.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
The next morning he sets out at 3am.
He had tried to get as much sleep as he possibly could, but he quickly found out that sleep no longer wants anything to do with him.
He realizes now that although the last two days were complete hell, almost all of what he had felt had been annoyance and frustration and quite the dose of professional and personal guilt towards all those that were connected to him.
But not once through it all, had he felt despair.
Now however, it is all that he can feel. It has settled like a heavy and unshakable cloak around him and it has beaten him numb.
He no longer holds any interest in fighting. All he wants now is to get home and ensure that his mother is alright. Then to wait this storm out to see what is left at the end of the wreckage.
The aftermath no longer bothers him, and if he tries hard enough he can almost fully convince himself that he no longer cares.
What concerns him now is that he can sense that he is on the verge of an explosion, and it worries him because he knows that the next person that pushes him is going to be on the receiving end of his wrath.
He doesn't know how far he will go, and how much of his mind and temper he will lose in the process so he does all he can to avoid everyone and everything as he makes his way out of the hotel.
Thankfully, it is still quite early so the majority of the world is asleep. Therefore things are acceptably easy.
Thus he is soon strapped into the driver seat of the minivan, and on his way.
He has never driven for more than twelve hours at a stretch before, so he especially welcomes this trip. He needs it more than anything else. The constant motion, the privacy and the space to breathe enough to be able to put things in the right perspective. He keeps the window slightly rolled down since there is a low chance of him being spotted, and in no time he is on the open road.
For the first two hours, all that he can tolerate is his own mind and it's stream of endless thoughts.
They are about everything and at the same time nothing at all. He revisits a few memories from his past, way back before any of this. Way back when he was just ordinary and bright eyed
He misses the simplicity of those day, mourns them almost but yet he doesn't long for them.
He doesn't long for a time when he was obscure, or a time without all the backlash.
But and to his absolute dismay, what he longs for right now is for his time with Yibo. He thinks a bit harder to find a particular memory with him that stands out from the rest. It is quite difficult but soon his mind settles on one.
That kiss... in Yibo's bathroom.
It was the first time that he had ever told him in person that he loved him... the first time that he had ever wanted beyond anything else to be irrevocably intertwined with another person. He had stared into his eyes and never wanted to look away.
And in that moment he had known.
Realized even, what Mei li had been talking about.
It doesn't have anything to do with attraction, or even feelings. I've come to understand that it is this... bond between two people that knits them together into one. When you're in this person's presence, you don't feel like there's two of you, but one.
Right now, the feelings that he has towards Yibo are sour. Immensely so, but at the same time he is the one person in this moment that he wants to speak to.
He wants to yell at him because he knows that it is the only way that he will be able to truly breathe.
However he doesn't want to call him, at least not now.
The rest of her words replay in his mind.
You can say anything to them, act anyway you want in front of them, be completely exposed and vulnerable. You were never that way with me. You were always careful, respectful. Just too... guarded.
With Yibo, he had indeed been careful and guarded but none of it had stemmed from a weakness in their connection. But for him doing all of his best to keep anything from tampering with it.
Had this been the wrong move? he wonders now.
He glances at the phone that is attached to the dashboard, and serving as his gps to navigate the route with. He turns his face away, but then a few seconds later he glances back at the screen.
Without any further contemplation, he sighs and pulls up Yibo's contact.
It is now 5am, perhaps too early for him to be awake but still he wants to try. He has no idea what he is going to say to him but he knows that if this moment passes, he will never find out. And he wants to find out.
So he allows the phone to ring and just when it is about to disconnect, Yibo picks up.
A long silence follows, and for a second he is almost sure that he is hallucinating that Yibo is on the line. But then the timer of the call continues to roll.
He knows then that Yibo is definitely on the other side... waiting.
Xiao Zhan settles his gaze on the rising sun in the horizon before him.
He parts his lips and lets out the first thing that comes to his mind.
"I just want to tell you that I resent you for the way you spoke to me yesterday."
At this admission, Yibo doesn't say a word and it aggravates him enough continue.
"I understand that you were angry, and that I was wrong for not telling you what had been happening..." he shakes his head. "But you should never have spoken to me that way or ended the call so abruptly when you know what I'm going through."
Yibo finally responds. "I don't know what you're going through."
Xiao Zhan goes still.
"What?"
"I asked if there was anything else that you wanted to say. You said there wasn't."
Xiao Zhan feels his blood begin to boil.
"And so you ended the call?"
Silence.
"Haven't you claimed to know me? Haven't you claimed to be able to see through me? So why didn't you push? And why didn't you pry? Now you want to be complacent? Now you want to let me have my way?"
Xiao Zhan's heart is thundering against his chest with immense annoyance. He presses down on the gas pedal, needing to rev up something and the car flies through the highway.
Yibo remains silent so his insides continue to char until he cannot take it anymore.
"If you don't respond to me right now I'm going to end this call. And you're not going to hear from me for a very long time."
The seconds tick past, and although fear grips Xiao Zhan, he still lifts his hand and moves it towards the disconnect button. Just before he presses it however, Yibo speaks.
"Xiao Zhan," he calls, and his heart almost collapses with relief.
Xiao Zhan slows down his speed, and rolls up the window so that he can clearly hear every word.
"I feel as though I should never have forced my way back into your life. Maybe that first time, things happened the way that they were supposed to happen. To warn us off each other."
Xiao Zhan's breath hitches in his throat. He wants to speak up, to counter this but he cannot get his mouth to move.
He is eventually forced to however because Yibo doesn't say another word.
He scoffs in feigned derision.
"So what are you saying," he asks. "You want to retreat?"
Once again Yibo doesn't respond, so Xiao Zhan slows the vehicle down even further and brings it to a stop by the side of the road. He waits on Yibo for a few more seconds, and when he sees his life begin to flash before his eyes he speaks up.
"Yibo I'm going to give you five more seconds."
This prompts him, and Xiao Zhan listens intently to his voice as it reverberates, low and quiet throughout the entire car.
"I keep feeling apologetic towards you."
"And I've told you that there's no need for you to be," Xiao Zhan grits his teeth.
"Is that true?"
"Well, for cutting out call short yesterday the way you did, it's not. You should be fucking sorry for that."
"Is that all?" Yibo asks.
Xiao Zhan doesn't know what else to say so he remains silent.
"I don't want to keep hurting you."
"I've never said you did."
"You never say anything."
At his words, Xiao Zhan feels something dull and heavy ram into his gut. Before he can speak again Yibo goes on.
"You once told me that you would, erase the line."
He doesn't dare breathe, and can do nothing but just stare wide eyed at the phone.
"That if things don't work out the way we want it to, then we could go back."
"Go back to what?" he grits his teeth, feeling so much hate for Yibo in this moment that it is poisoning every part of him.
"Not being as close."
Xiao Zhan goes silent.
"Will you?" Yibo asks." Erase the line?"
Xiao Zhan grips the stirring wheel so hard that his knuckles turn white, and it takes everything in him not to slam his hand against it.
"So you want to go back."
"Isn't it best?"
"For whom? You or me?"
Yibo does not respond.
Xiao Zhan looks away from the phone, and settles it on the window. At the cars zooming past and the stretch of farm land beyond.
His response comes to him then.
"There is no line to erase," he says. "Your request was that I erase the line if my decision was not in alignment with yours. But it is. I stepped over it and came to you. So there is no line."
"However right now you've just drawn another one between us and I'm not going to play this game again."
Yibo remains silent.
"I'm going to talk to you now so listen very carefully."
"I have resented you for not offering to speak up for me. In March. I've resented you for being careless with your affections for me on camera. And I've resented you because it seems that your fate is better than mine."
At this, Yibo still doesn't say a single word and it is about to drive Xiao Zhan crazy."
"Wang Yibo!" he growls.
"Is that all?" he asks.
"Yes," he replies.
"I've heard you," he says.
"So now what?" Xiao Zhan asks.
"I don't know," Is Yibo's reply.
"You still want to walk away?"
"I don't know."
"If you walk away, I will never let you back."
"Alright," Yibo replies, and violent tears burst from Xiao Zhan's eyes.
"You always get what you want don't you?," he manages to speak as they roll down his cheeks. "You latch on and I give in. You let go and I am thrown aside."
"I'm not throwing you aside."
"So what do you think you're doing right now?"
"I don't deserve you."
"So this is it? This is how you're going to break me?"
Xiao Zhan smiles then, and takes a deep breath.
"Alright. I'll let you do what you want. And Yibo, If you do walk away, I hope that it hurts you... deeply."
His voice is trembling now but he doesn't stop.
"And I hope that it rips you apart... to pieces."
"And then I hope that you come back to your senses. When you do, come find me. I'll put you back together."
And with this, he reaches forward and ends the call.
Then for good measure, he takes the phone off the dashboard mount, and completely shuts it off.
Notes:
This chapter was never in my notes so I rewrote it at least 10 times trying to figure out why the hell it came out of nowhere and then I realized why. Yibo lost confidence and it never occurred to me that he would. He's no longer looking solely at Xiao Zhan but himself and he is seeing all the cracks.
I thought this story would be a cakewalk but 'writing' never fails to humble me. I know nothing.