After that night their usual trips to the hill became much more rare, until they stopped altogether.

Yixing wasn’t quite sure why.

••••••••••

“Yixing, no.”

It had been weeks since their last visit to the stars. Kris spent the majority of his days cooped in his hospital room, wasting away in his bed. Yixing visited him often, but the two rarely spoke and when he did try to initiate conversation Kris would either respond with muffled grunts or with shakes of his head.

Yixing was at a loss, he didn't know what to do anymore.

But then again, did he ever?

“Why? I don’t think it’s a bad idea.”

“You don’t think anything is a bad idea.”

“Maybe, but especially this.”

“Your mom told me the last time you played sport you basically nearly tore your arm off.”

“She’s exaggerating, plus I -”

“Not to mention you can’t sweat, so unless you wanted to play basketball in the middle of winter in Iceland stark – you’re probably gonna overheat and die.”

“But then you’d probably get frostbite and have all your limbs fall off – but it wouldn't matter because you can’t feel it anyway, right?” there was annoyance in Kris’ tone, but his voice somehow sounded empty at the same time – devoid of life.

“Yeah, I’ve done my homework Yixing. Just because you don’t understand yourself doesn’t mean other people can’t,” he glared darkly at Yixing, his stare so intense Yixing felt as though Kris was trying to burn holes through him.

Kris looked different these past couple of weeks. Deep dark circles sagged his eyes, the skin on his cheeks sunk in revealing his angular cheekbones, his hair now oily and a bit too long was carelessly pushed to the side out of his eyes. His earrings, bangles and rings were gone as was a good percentage of his body weight. Yixing could see dangerously sharp collarbones protruding from beneath his hospital gown.

Burdened by the weight of simply living, it seemed that Kris had given up.

“Why are you angry?”

“Because I don’t understand what you’re trying to do.”

Yixing’s intentions were simple; he only wanted to help Kris get better. What this meant in Kris’ circumstance, he wasn’t sure. But he watched helplessly these past couple of weeks as his friend slowly deterioated and he could do nothing to stop it. 

He was no longer the Kris who was gluing himself back together, rather he was tearing himself apart too quickly for Yixing to be able to catch the falling pieces.

A damaged soul is harder to fix than a damaged leg, after all.

And there was only so much you could do for someone who wanted to stay broken.

Then this morning, as he was watching a basketball game on TV in his hospital room alone, he suddenly had an idea.

“I wanted to take it away,” Yixing says quietly.

“Take what away?”

“Your pain.”

“By playing basketball?”

“I thought, maybe if you saw me…” his voice trailed off, and he swallowed hard, “you’d try harder in rehab.”

“You don’t think I’m ing tryi-”

“- So that you could get back onto the basketball court, so you could feel alive again,” Yixing said quickly, cutting Kris off. Yixing suddenly realised how juvenile he sounded. Stupid, simple-minded Yixing.

“I am alive, Yixing. This,” Kris gestured to his bad leg with his eyes, there was a look of contempt on his face, “is my constant reminder.

Yixing bit his lip, head down, concentrating on the hospital floor with his arms behind his back. Like a child being scolded by a teacher. “Please, just let me help you with pain. Like you’ve been helping me,” he was practically begging now, but he didn’t care. 

“I thought you told me that you didn’t have any.”

“I thought you told me that was impossible.”

There was a pause, and Kris let out a big sigh.

“Yifan.”

“What?”

“My name is Yifan.”

“Wu Yi Fan. Two meanings. It can either mean not ordinary. Extraordinary. Or it means just ordinary, to be an equal amongst everyone. I used to be extraordinary,” he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before opening them again.

“Wu Yi Fan was extraordinary. Basketball captain, college scholarship receiver, class president, well liked.”

“Kris is just ordinary. Bitter, angry, sad, self-pitying Kris who doesn’t even have two working legs. Actually, I’m not even just ordinary anymore, I’m less than.”

“Kris was the English name given to me when I lived in Canada. When I wasn’t anyone, just the weird new Asian kid who nobody liked. I dropped that name as soon as I came back home, because Kris was a nobody. Wu Yi Fan was always destined to be somebody.”

“And then this,” he looked down at this leg, “happened, so I started to go by Kris again. Because I realized I couldn’t live up to Wu Yi Fan anymore,” silence filled the room. The suffocating, smothering kind of silence that made Yixing want to just get up and run away.

They had stopped going to their tree, and they had stopped watching the night sky. Yixing finally started to understand why.

Yixing shuffles uncomfortably on the spot, and quietly says,

“I think Kris is just fine.”

I’m so sorry for making Kris such a moping mess in this chapter. 

And I’m also sorry/warnings for what’s about to come.

PLEASE DON’T HATE ME. I will redeem myself in the epilogue I swear.