Epilogue; Sunset

===

Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones

===

He opens his eyes to the sight of Han River.

The place is not too crowded on such afternoon like this. He walks around, a little bit lost, a little bit hazy. He takes a look at the vial in his hand. The tiny grass in it is still green.

Ah, right.

He searches blindly for that someone to appear. He looks around, finding the familiar bench at the side of the river. Someone is sitting on it. Black leather jacket. A white card on his hand.

He looks to his left. True to his guess, a guy in navy blue jacket is walking slowly along the side. He gasps. It’s him. He can’t even stop his tears from forming on the corner of his eyes. It’s him.

But how to stop him?!

He thinks hard for a while, before he finally finds something. He walks quickly to the guy and immediately stops in front of him, making the guy halts his step abruptly in shock.

“You are Kris Wu, right?” he asks with trembling voice.

The guy doesn’t say anything, probably too shocked.

“I’m Huang Zitao,” he says with all the energy that is left in him, “the son of Huang Guan, who died in a car crash with your mother twenty three years ago.”

The guy looks down for a short while before he looks up again. “Is there anything… I can do for you?”

“N-nothing.” He tries so hard to suppress his tears. “Just – just remember that I hate you, I hate you so much,” he gulps down, “and that I don’t want to see you ever again after this!”

Kris Wu looks down again, without saying anything. Is it working?? he panics inside as he turns his head around to check the bench. To his favor, there’s no one on the bench anymore.

“That – that’s all.” he steps back. “I’ll leave now.”

“Wait,” he hears the guy’s voice as he was about to turn around.

“What??” he asks without being bothered to look at the guy.

“I…” the guy mumbles, “I’m sorry, for everything. I know… I know it’s too late and it’s useless, but, I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“I will never be in front of you again. You have my word.”

Then he hears the guy walking away from where he stands.

He doesn’t even realize he’s already sobbing openly on the pavement.

==

“To think again,” a voice suddenly comes, “I can’t grant your wish. You know, the ‘just let me die instead’ part.”

Tao looks up, finding Lay standing in front of him.

“Maybe I can tweak some part of fate a little bit, but I can’t just easily change it like that.” Lay smiles sheepishly. “I can’t grant your wish about dying. Instead of it, why don’t you do something for me? I can grant you a wish for free in exchange.”

Tao wipes the remnants of his tears as he stands up. “What is it?”

“You know that everything happens in order, right?” Lay starts. “In your case, it all started from where you woke up in front of my door. And actually you from that point of time was already there before I leave to meet you again. Let’s just call him your Double.”

“Really?”

“Yes. But the thing is, I’m afraid that your Double will fail on wishing anything because he doesn’t have the ring.”

“The ring?”

“Your ring, the one you gave me earlier.”

“How do you know he doesn’t have the ring?”

Lay smiles at him. “Zitao, do you think this is your first time fixing this thing?”

Tao stares at his own duplicate, sprawled on the porch of Lay’s house.

“If you give him the ring,” Lay says as he hands the silver band over to Tao, “it will trigger him to ask to regain his memory. I don’t know why. The ring always does the work.”

Staring at the ring, Tao smiles bitterly.

“If he asks it, then he will be able to save Kris.” Lay speaks again. “It’s like a loop. A system.”

“So once he fixed the mess, he would have to give the ring again to, like, my Triple?”

“Yes, in order to keep the system.”

Tao nods slowly. He walks towards his Double and kneels down, placing the ring on the opened hand. He stares at his other self in front of him, suddenly feeling sad. You’ve been through a lot, Tao smiles as he caresses the jet black locks.

“I’m sorry.” He whispers.

“Okay then,” Lay smiles. “I guess it’s time for you to have your free wish.”

Tao chuckles. “I don’t even know what to wish for.”

“Why don’t you check your pocket?”