Yixing

Her loud sobs became faint sniffles until she was just soundly breathing. In and Out. Soft and Rhythmic. Aye, she must have slept; exhausted from all the crying she did earlier.

Soori had done so much crying for the past few days, but Yixing didn't know that for sure, so he chuckled seeing his friend nodding off on his shoulder.

They had transferred on the couch in the living room after that one delicious meal Soori made him. It was really tasty, he must admit. And if he could just really stay here for as long as he could, he definitely would. He wouldn't mind actually eating her meals every day and being taken care of like a kid again. Aye, he felt pampered with her. No one had been so kind like her to him, he thought. That made him laugh.

And to think he had let her cry in front of him even though he hated the touchy, tear-jerking subjects and melodramas of life, aye, he must have gone crazy. Yeah. She had transformed him to a mad person. But at that moment while he sat with her in the silence, he actually didn't mind becoming one. Perhaps, he even liked what she had made of him.

Because he used to be like that kid he had let go the night of his lonely escapade in the streets.

Bottles of alcohol comforted his mind, but never his soul. He had struggled to live ever since his brother died. He doubted himself. He hated himself. He had lost himself to his own monster. He had become a monster. He hated his own family. He hated his parents. But he hated Jianyi the most for leaving him on his own.

He could have endured it that their parents only doted on his older brother. No, they didn't care about him that sometimes in his childhood he wondered whether he was just adopted. But he was their son. And even after so many years after Jianyi's death, he wouldn't be able to deny that he was still their son no matter what. And it embarrassed him he couldn't change that fact; he was their—of the two—least favorite son that they decided to use too for their own benefit later on—as his brother's substitute.

When Jianyi died, it was like the long years of ignoring him had been forgotten. Like nothing really happened in that period of time, and they acted as if they had done well as his parents. Ah, they offered him expensive things: a car, a black credit card, an opportunity to attend an exclusive school in the metro, as long as he followed all their orders. And he knew he didn't really want all of that just like his brother.

He was just like Jianyi, he realized. But he wasn't going to endure their orders like his brother. No, he wasn't a fool. He couldn't be fooled anymore. Because he had learned at a young age how bad was their parenting and he knew he would just probably end up hanging himself too if he even dared to submit to them.

And so Zhang Yixing learned how to defy death like a plane trying to defy gravity. He defied life as well. He decided he won't live mundanely. Nothing was now normal in his life anyway. So he tried every single adventure like he was just going to live once and die another day. Live once and then die. Live once and then die. He had sung the mantra even in his sleep that he thought he had already forgotten how to fear.

But with his new life, he decided he was going to start again as a blank slate. Like a Tabula Rasa. And so, he tried to forget everyone including the friends he made. He was so afraid that they'd come to hate him too for this change that he just acted before they could even throw him away first.

No one was abandoning him again, he thought at that time. This time, he was the one who will do the leaving. He would be the first to walk away and would have the final say.

But that night, something changed. Zhang Yixing didn't fear d