Title: hug you tight (so that all your broken pieces will stick back together)
Pairing: Yifan/Zitao
Word count: 650~

Zitao has this bear; he calls it Peach. Peach is a panda, given to Tao on his fifth birthday, he remembers. Not as a birthday gift, but some kind of mockery, a mean joke because Zitao has ugly black eyebags like pandas. Zitao thinks it to be soft and cuddly with all the blacks and whites in the right places and hugs Peach to sleep everyday, protectively close to his chest.

Peach is a porcelain made panda, body a little sharp due to the cracks from the dry weather, little pieces broken and shards sharp, even hurting. Just a little like Zitao and his wushu. He believes that “someday someone will hug you so tight that all your broken pieces will stick back together.”

Yifan has this furry animal; he calls it Ace. Ace is an alpaca, given to Yifan on his tenth birthday. It is a rather nice birthday gift for him to draw out, but Yifan can’t love it because he has no sort of talent associated with pens and pencils. He could only cuddle it to sleep every night, mind filled with untouchable dreams of perfect sketches.

Ace’s stitches by it’s side were frayed and loose and on the edge of breaking when it meets Peach, probably due the sharp pencil leads Yifan uses to poke in through untidily sewn threads.

In an isolated corner of the room, where the kids leave Zitao out of all the games and fun because Zitao is weird with the creepy eyebags, Yifan approaches the lonely male and greets with his charismatic smile and a curt wave of “hi” because they are both from China. Zitao merely peers up at him in acknowledgement before turning his attention back to the mess of glue and porcelain shards with Peach in the middle sitting in front of him.

Yifan somehow manages to convince Zitao that he can fix it, and Zitao sits backs to the sidelines with narrowed eyes and silent threats of “I’ll wushu your back to China if you hurt Taozi”, not minding the fact that the other was at least 5 inches taller than he was and a little much older.

The older male s his backpack and pulls out Ace, half-intending to tear away the frayed threads and open Ace up so that it can share a bit of it’s soft wool with Peach. But Ace’s Alpaca eyes staring, pleading at him doesn’t allow him to do so and he lets out an inaudible sigh in defeat, opting to stick Ace over the little rough patches of Peach.

Ace ends up looking like it’s hugging Peach, it’s short limbs wound around the stiff and fragile toy despite the fact that the rough edges are going to cut and hurt, and Yifan hands the stuck-together toy back to Zitao.

Zitao stares at the toy, mouth slightly agape. Yifan couldn’t tell the look on his face, but a small smile, fragile and beautiful, slowly appears on Zitao’s face. It blows Yifan away as he receives the small mumble of “thank you” as a shy stutter.

Zitao wonders if he could share the toy, because it is, after all a combination of both Peach and it’s new partner from Yifan. He hugs the toy a little, finding how infinitely softer it seemed and pulls away a little while later, looking at Yifan with his unintentionally piercing eyes. “Let’s share,” and he makes a space next to him, patting on it and inviting Yifan to have a seat, his left arm wound around the soft part of the toy.

Yifan settles into the small space a little uncomfortably at that invitation, unconsciously taking note how purple-ish bruises bloomed on Zitao’s left arm before wondering how Zitao got them and whether or not he could cover them up (or even heal them) with a hug. Zitao seems so small and broken next to him as he tightens his hold around the stuck-together toy.

Hey it’s okay now. Yifan wants to say when he finally gives in to his urge to hug Zitao. I’ll be here to stick you back. He wants to say when he envelops Zitao tight in his arms, hoping that Zitao doesn't crumble anymore.