Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes…

Huang Zitao was a peculiar boy with fascination for the mythical. Although, how he balanced himself so well between reality and Reality is beyond my understanding. Even to this day, all centuries separated him from me, he remained a past existence I could not wrap my head around.

The abstract boy who found the perfect balance without as much as a tilt within his scope. The boy who matured with least suffering among his kind, but never ignorantly, no. Huang Zitao had faced pain, love, hatred, bitterness and loss as all humans did, but as though blessed, his heart remained pure and untainted—almost unscathed—until the day he ceased to exist.

An ideal of humanity, a mind at its perfection, an immune heart, a life of a Spring stream and never a dormant well.

Huang Zitao was the boy who proved to me the possibility to co-exist in both worlds. It was possible to lead such life with content, possible to remain in one world and still succeed in the other—all of this, without having to bear the torments that were fated upon his fellow friends.

Every war has turning points and every person too…

Kris now had a surrogate brother, Huang Zitao, in addition to his surrogate mother, Lee Jisun. This was the closest thing to a dream fulfilled for Wu Yifan as it could be for a boy who did not dream. Although, a certain part of him knew that he was capable of abstraction as much as any other person out there, Kris constrained himself to only the things he could touch, see and explain.

Despite all the concreteness of his life, Lee Jisun was his hope. The brightest of motivations for him to fulfil his duties for his real parents. It may not seem related but it was for him and some things were better left with no explanations anyway. A year after he graduated from high school with first-class honour, his father bought him a pleasant apartment near enough for him to arrive at his medical school with leisure time to stroll.

Kris never strolled.

He used all his free time humbly climbing up all the professors’ pet lists. He worked over time, assisted in lab tests, volunteered for any organisation imaginable and develop project ideas that either were fascinating or showed that he was a diligent student. Gradually, his expected seven years were reduced to six by the time freshmen year was over. In his second year, he worked as a Teacher’s Assistant and mentor whenever there were independent studies or his professors asked him to cover for them as they go on their scientific misadventures.

By the time his third year approached, it was 2012 and Huang Zitao had long made home in the spare bedroom of Kris’ apartment. Miraculously, the expected time span of his medical study was now reduced to one more year, or if he was optimistic, half a year would suffice.

There is always a way out for those clever enough to find it…

“My condolences,” said a rough-hearted man in a prim black suit as he took Tao’s hands. The boy, raven-haired and gaunt eyes, nodded, remaining silent as the man walked off.

An old woman came along. She entertained a black blouse, long skirt and a veil, but what caught Tao’s attention was her fedora; it was bright yellow.

“Oh, my boy,” cried the woman as she not only took his hands but engulfed him into a motherly embrace that tugged on the strings of his heart. Tao scrunched his eyes shut, willing himself to remain strong.

The lady pulled away, patting his wet cheek with her handkerchief. There were tears in her bloodshot eyes behind her veil.

“Your grandmother,” sobbed the woman, “in our thirties, s-she’d always joke that she would never allow the colour black at her funeral.” With that, the lady wailed, pulling Tao into a hysterical embrace. “I’m afraid this is the best I can do,” she choked, referring to her fedora.

It was becoming difficult for him not to cry as he imagined his grandmother, in her thirties, beautiful and happy and warm. It so contrasted with what she was now; greyed, paled and cold.

A soothing voice coaxed close to his ear as a firm hand rested on his shoulder, reeling him into a gruff one-arm hug, “Hang in there, Tao.” He leaned in as the other hand ruffled his hair. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

Tao closed his eyes, tears escaping, sinking onto the man’s shoulder. He breathed in the expensive cologne that did not belong to him—it always comforted him—and broke away, wiping his eyes with his knuckles.

“Yeah,” he murmured weakly, straightening up.

Kris patted his head and gave him a reassuring smile. He looked as handsome and ever-important as ever. Meekly, Tao wondered how unflattering he must seem, with bloodshot eyes, unkempt hair and in a suit a size too big for him. Tao did not own a suit. He borrowed Sehun’s. Kris managed to glance around the now empty ceremony hall, eyes resting on the portrait of Tao’s grandmother, before leading her grandson outside.

It was leaning into dusk. The air was pleasant, the wind was mild as the older rested his hand on the younger’s shoulder to keep him walking.

“Ready?”

Tao nodded. “Yeah.”

As they walked down the green slope, towards an old blossom tree at the heel of the hill, Tao tugged at Kris’ blazer. “Stay with me.”

Kris looked around, brows knitting. Tao knew that Kris could judge by the tone of his voice that it was both a plea and an order.

“Are you sure?” the older asked anyway.

“I don’t want to face them alone,” was all Tao managed to say as they drew nearer to the trunk, its enormous shadow looming over them.

Three figures stood under its shed. Three people Tao had never laid eyes upon. Three absolute strangers. All of them wore courteous black formals and appropriate sadness on their faces. That was the most Tao expected from them.

He stepped closer. Kris’ presence was assuring behind him.

“Huang Zitao,” a beautiful lady breathed his name breathlessly. Her eyes were glimmering with polite tears. To her left, stood a tall gaunt man with strikingly familiar shadows under his eyes. The shadows he found every time he looked in the mirror. Unlike Tao, the man’s face was bonier, rougher, hollower. His lips existed without the bow curve that Tao possessed.

Tao’s eyes and lips and the outline of his face… he found them in the woman’s face.

Standing before the couple was a young man—about Kris’ age or perhaps older—with clean hands clasped before him. He stood proper and straight and he was taller than Tao. His hair was neater, combed and parted. His face was more delicate, and his figure held that formidable air Tao usually only ever found in Kris.

A hand squeezed his shoulder. He let out a breath, not being able to look away, for it could simply have been a mirror reflection of the person Tao could have been but was not, and would never be.

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