(( Wow this is late xD I was so distracted working on next week's update that it took until Angel just now saying that no one's commented yet to make me realize that I hadn't posted the chapter. Oops ^^; Here you go~))

 “I…” Yixing started, waiting for the secretary to look up from the document she was covering with red inked revisions. “I have an… appointment with Mr. Wu…”

“Mr. Wu is on family leave at the moment, are you sure it wasn’t rescheduled?”

“N-no, I meant… With his son,” Yixing corrected, and she stared at him for a moment before turning to a notebook, flipping through it.

“Are you Mr. Zhao?”

“Yup! That’s me,” Yixing exclaimed in a rush and she looked up at him long enough for his stomach to start knotting itself up again, eventually turning to the phone on her desk, holding the receiver to her ear and pressing a couple of buttons.

“Sir, your next appointment is here, I’m sending him on his way,” she said, giving a subtle nod to whatever response was given before she hung up. “Go through that door, down the hall. Last door on the left,” she explained, giving a half hearted gesture towards the door behind the desk, returning to the document she had been working on. Yixing gave a stiff nod before stepping cautiously past her, looking back at her once before opening the door, closing it gently behind himself.

Yifan sighed, shaking his head in hopes that it would get rid of the tired lag that hung over him, and he leaned back in his chair as he pulled his mobile out of his pocket. The screen lit up with the press of a button, showing the picture he had taken of Yixing at the beach house when the younger was still asleep, looking peaceful in the nest of blankets. The confusion that covered the blond’s face when Yifan said he wasn’t going back to China flashed through his mind in contrast and he leaned forward, pocketing his mobile as there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” he called in a tight voice, adjusting the files on his desk as the door was opened. He looked up, eyes widening before he shook his head again, rubbing his face with one hand before running it through his hair. “Learn from other’s mistakes,” he started, taking a deep breath. “Don’t counter sleep troubles with unhealthy amounts of coffee, you start seeing impossible things,” he said, lowering his hand and looking up at the blond, met with two hands taking a hold of either side of his face, and he stared dumbly up at the figure. “Y… Yixing?” If his expression didn’t show how startled he was, his voice would have given a clue. “Why are you here?”

“Why did you leave?” Yixing asked in turn, and Yifan made an attempt to pull away, Yixing tightening his grip.

“I-I told you, the company-”

“No. Why did you leave?” Yixing asked slower, squishing Yifan’s face when the older tried to avert his gaze.

“I… I knew that I wouldn’t be spending much time in Korea… With my mother’s condition getting worse, my father needed me to take over the company full time. I already spent little time with you when I was just interning here, let alone running it. I didn’t think it was fair to you, making you wait for someone who couldn’t be there for you,” he explained, Yixing finally releasing his face. “It’s bad enough that I tried to put a band aid over my lack of being around with buying you Meng…” he trailed off, giving a halfhearted laugh, closing his eyes and lowering his head as much as Yixing would let him. “Which, thinking about it, was really stupid. ‘Here, I can’t take care of you, so have this cat that you have to take care of instead.”

“You’re wrong.” Yifan’s eyes flashed open and he rose his gaze back to Yixing’s.

“What do you mean I’m wrong?”

“Meng was meant to take care of me when you were out of town, and that’s what he’s done since you gave him to me. Any time that I feel sad or I start to miss you, he can tell and he’ll jump up into my lap and distract me from any sad thoughts… Like Junmyeon will when he feels that I’m upset about something.”

“But you have to shift your life around when you’re given a pet. It takes a lot of time and effort to care for them and-”

“They both take care of me, and in turn I take care of them!” Yixing argued you make it sound like it’s some kind of obligation. But it’s not, it’s what you do when you love someone! No matter how hard things get you stick by the person you love… Distance means nothing when what you feel towards someone is real…” Yixing’s hands quivered and eased their hold a little on Yifan’s face, and his hands came up to brush his fingers over the backs of them before holding them gently and pulling them off of his face. He allowed Yixing to intertwine their fingers, looking to them and feeling his heart throb a little as he remembered how much time he had spent staring at the empty spaces between his own fingers over the past couple of months.

“I don’t care that you’re gone a lot, I don’t care if we only talk for five minutes a week, and only see each other a little during breaks,” Yixing started again, Yifan looking up at the blond, unable to stop himself from holding the other’s hands to his lips. “I love you, and I know you love me… so please… please don’t leave me, because I need you and you need me because we’re soulmates!” Yixing’s head was hung now, his voice cracking a little at the end, and Yifan tightened his hold on the younger’s hands when he saw the tears trying to escape Yixing’s closed eyes. He stood, releasing the blond’s hands long enough to loop around his desk, pulling Yixing against his chest tightly, Yixing pressing his face into the crook of Yifan’s neck as he swallowed back a hiccup of a sob. “We-we… we have to b-be,” Yixing whimpered, Yifan kissing the side of his head and trying to pull him closer. “I-it… it wouldn’t have h-hurt so much if we w-weren’t, right?” Yifan opened his mouth, the pair flinching at the voice that sounded from the desk.

“Mr. Wu, your next appointment is here.” The light brown haired male shot a glare at the speaker on his desk, turning a little to reach for the button that would allow him to respond, stopping short as Yixing’s grip tightened on the front of his shirt. He turned his attention back to the younger, cringing when the voice sounded again. “Mr. Wu? Did you hear me?” Yifan sighed, taking Yixing’s hands in his own again in order to pull them from his shirt.

“I really need to get to that, but…” he trailed off, releasing one of the other’s hands to nudge him to look up, met with resistance that he was pretty sure was due to the fact that the other had started crying. “Hey, Yixing, look at me.” It took a little bit, and a third call over the speaker filled the silence before he saw the younger’s eyes again. “We will finish this talk. Here,” he let go of the other’s chin, digging around in his pocket and pulling out a key ring. He took one of Yixing’s hands in his own, setting the key ring in his palm and closing Yixing’s fingers around them. “These are to my apartment, I’ll tell my secretary to make you a list of directions to find it. Wait there for me, and I’ll be there as soon as I can be.”

“… Will you actually be there?” Yixing asked when he found his voice, staring up at the other from under his bangs. Yifan took a slow breath at the sting that the question left in his heart, nodding once.

“I promise that I’ll be there.” There was a knock on the office door, Yifan’s eyes flickering to it before he reached out, cupping Yixing’s cheek and placing a kiss on the younger’s forehead, pulling back slowly and moving back to the other side of his desk as the door opened.

“Mr. Wu, did you not hear me? We have to keep you on schedule, these are very important appointments. Your clients do not take well to being kept waiting,” the secretary stated in a harsh tone and Yifan sighed as he dropped himself in his office chair.

“Send in my next appointment, and make sure you give him a detailed direction list to my apartment,” Yifan replied, gesturing to Yixing. She looked between the two, then gave Yixing a once over before she shook her head as she rolled her eyes, turning and making her way back out of the office, muttering something about being inappropriate with the company clients. Yixing looked to Yifan once more before he followed the grumbling figure from the room, a dark haired male taking his place in the room with Yifan.

“Whatever you do, please don’t sue us for ual harassment.” Yixing’s eyes widened and he stared at the secretary as she held out a piece of cardstock with a map drawn on it, instructions along the side of it.

“W-what?”

“Mr. Wu’s been acting stranger and stranger the longer he runs the company. I only hope that he’s not trying to solicit you for , especially since it’s against company policy to get involved with clients in such fashion,” she explained as Yixing took the card and looked down at it. 

Yixing unlocked the door, swallowing hard at how daunting the click of the lock sounded. He took a deep breath before opening the door and stepping inside, letting his shoulder bag slide down and drop to the floor as the door shut behind him. Looking around the bare apartment did nothing to settle his stomach, dropping himself on the futon that seemed to act as both a bed and a couch in the studio apartment. It seemed oddly small for the older, even if he had shared a dorm that didn’t seem much bigger with three others for as long as Yixing had known him. The blond slid his shoes off, pulling his legs to his chest as the memory for Yifan revealing the enormous beach house flashed through his mind and he sighed, turning his head so his cheek rested on top of his knee.

You're being strange, doing things that are so unlike you, Yifan-Ge, the blond thought, closing his eyes. You're so warm, but this place… How can you stand being in a place like this?

His eyes opened a few moments later, focusing on something familiar sitting in the corner. He lifted his head, sliding his legs back off of the futon and making his way over to sit with his legs folded underneath him, fingers running over the fabric of the suitcase that had been missing from Yifan’s hand on that horrid day. One of his hands found the zipper, slowly dragging it around the perimeter of the case, hesitant to flip the lid up, his heart skipping a beat when he finally found the nerve. From how packed the suitcase was it didn’t seem like Yifan had unpacked a single thing from it. The blond’s hands traced over the bottle of shampoo, the fabric of the shirt on top, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. He had bought it for Yifan for one of their monthly anniversaries and the older wore it to bed most nights that they spent together; Yifan had even teased Yixing once saying that the younger was going to make a permanent impression in the fabric over his heart since Yixing was always drawing shapes over the fabric, or holding onto it while he slept.

Yixing stood and made his way back over to the futon, sitting with his legs crossed as he held the shirt up to his face, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.
 

“It smells like you~” Yixing chimed, holding up the shirt to a mildly confused looking Yifan.

“It… what?”

“It smells like you,” he repeated, watching a blush creep over the older’s cheeks.

“I’ve worn it once, I doubt that it smells like me,” Yifan tried, Yixing shaking his head and snuggling closer to him on the bed.

“I know what you smell like, and it definitely smells like you.”
 

Before long Yixing had slumped over onto his side, holding the shirt close as he drifted off, his frame relaxing a little more each time he took in a breath of the older’s scent.