- A/N at the beginning of the chapter because I might have to give out a TW regarding drug abuse.

- NO THIS WILL NOT BE THE DOWNFALL INTO A PIT OF ANGST. WE WILL GET BACK ON TRACK.

- I AM VERY SORRY FOR THIS CHAPTER. SORRY SORRY SORRY FORGIVE ME.

After a rather exhausting afternoon at Disneyland, Yixing thought that everything they’d be doing afterwards was having dinner and then call it a day, but he got proven wrong right after their dessert a personal maid had served Yifan, Yixing, and Yili who sat at the dining table in Yifan’s suite.

“So!” Yifan exclaimed and threw his napkin over the emptied plate, “Where are we going tonight?”

Yili and Yixing raised their eyebrows in unison and made Yifan roll his eyes.

“Guys, if you think I’m spending my evening in this hotel you are wrong.”

“Well, I’d stay…” Yixing mumbled and Yili giggled.

“I think you should go slow, honey,” Yifan’s sister said, clearly trying to be his moral compass once again, “Think about your ankle.”

“I’m fine though!”

“You’ve been limping, you’re not.” Yixing shot at him and sipped on his wine and felt the alcohol numbing his face.

He already felt like one of these wine moms that clung to their glasses because their kids were especially stressful. Yifan was his kid. And he was stressing him out so much right now.

“Both of you are real party-poopers!”

“Or we are just trying to be your voice of reason because you obviously don’t have one yourself,” Yili suggested but Yifan just scoffed and shot up from the chair.

“I’m fine. Besides, I’m almost 25, I’m old enough to make decisions like that!”

While he went to the minibar to get some water, Yixing said:

“Decisions that are followed by statements like these are mostly decisions one comes to regret later.”

“Wow, wise words my friend!” Yili chirped, but Yixing just shrugged his shoulders while he supported his head with one hand.

“I’m just drunk and that leads to me spilling out some weird word vomit.”

“Guys, FOCUS!” Yifan cried out. When Yixing had emptied his glass, he poured him some water from the bottle he’d just fetched before he downed one painkiller, “I don’t want to stay at home like a loser, okay? I didn’t come to Hong Kong to sit around like an idiot.”

Yixing downed the water but it didn’t really help. His wit and sharp thoughts had been drowned by the wine already.

“Okay, so what do we have to do to make you stay?” He asked.

Yifan smirked and then answered:

“Well, I know some things. And all of them include you being and bent over some kind of furniture.”

Yili’s throat escaped a gagging noise and she cried out how bad this pick up line had been while Yixing looked up to Yifan and blinked at him in complete and utter disbelief. He acted like he thought about the prince’s words, then he turned to Yili and said:

“, Yili, we have to go out, I’m not going to sacrifice myself for that!”

The woman nodded and patted Yixing’s arm.

“I completely understand, Yixing. I wouldn’t want you to make that sacrifice either.”

Yifan was too busy getting excited to be offended about the words of the other two and Yili proceeded to ask where Yifan wanted to go. When he blurted out the name PLAY Club, his sister frowned.

“You know very well what kind of people roam there Yifan, do you think that’s a good idea?”

“Honey, I don’t want to go because of the people, I want to go because PLAY Club is just lit!”

Yixing rolled his eyes at Yifan’s slang terms but bit his tongue. Lit. Okay then, you idiot, he thought and poured himself some more wine. If he was going to be drunk today, he better made sure he’d be -wrecked.

“I’d rather go to Kee Club or something…”

“Yiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!” Yifan whined “I PROMISE, okay? I just want to go for the fun!”

“Yeah, fun at PLAY Club used to be popping pills and snorting white lines in the bathroom!” Yili blurted out and Yixing choked on his drink.

“Wait, was that where he used to get high?” The journalist asked the princess as if Yifan wasn’t even standing next to them.

“Past tense!” Yifan butted in and sat down on the chair next to Yixing, “Seriously, I haven’t been there for two years now, I’m good, nothing will happen! I’ve got Yixing, he’ll keep an eye on me!”

“Huh, wait, what? Since when did I become your babysitter?!”

Yili snorted at Yixing’s comment, but she immediately got serious again to voice her concerns. Yifan wasn’t taking a no for an answer though and she finally gave in to her brother’s request after making him promise to stay beside her or Yixing the whole time so they could keep track of his actions. Then she excused herself to get changed since she was still in her sneakers, crop top and high waist jeans she had worn for the Disneyland trip. When she was gone, Yifan patted Yixing’s thigh and said:

“Let’s get ready, baby!”

“Yifan, do you really think that is a good idea?”

The prince cocked his head, giving away he couldn’t quite follow Yixing’s words. The younger one sighed and then said:

“Isn’t this going to trigger something? Like, shouldn’t former addicts stay away from any kind of temptation?”

Yifan didn’t react at first but then his lips parted into a bright smile and he said:

“Aaawww, listen to you, you’re truly concerned about my well-being!!”

Yixing couldn’t find a witty comeback to that so he just rolled his eyes. Then he stood up and Yifan got on his feet too to cup the younger one’s face. Yixing grunted at the touch and the grip around his glass got tighter, just in case he had to pour the wine into Yifan’s face.

“Then let’s just do it like this: Every time I feel like taking some , I’ll just kiss you. You’ll be my drug then.”

“Jesus ING Christ could you finally stop with this bull you’re not even funny!” Yixing blurted out and shoved Yifan out of the way to get changed.

When he stomped into the bedroom, he heard Yifan’s deep laughter carrying over and he had to empty his drink. He deemed the heat rising up in his body the result of the wine cursing through his system before he shook his head and started to curse the prince while he exchanged the tank top he had been wearing with a simple and white dress shirt.

By the time all of them had finally changed into their party attire, they got to the club after a rather short car ride. As they got out of the vehicle, Yifan led the way and greeted the security guy at the door like an old friend who had to double check when the prince dashed towards him with open arms.

“You haven’t visited us in centuries, my prince!” The guy said and they shared a manly hug with a lot of shoulder patting, which caused Yili to roll her eyes.

“I haven’t been to Hong Kong in centuries, maybe that’s the thing!” Yifan winked and Yixing could’ve sworn to hear Yili grunt next to him, but he refrained from side eyeing her.

“I’ll let the rest of the staff know about your arrival. They’ll fix you the VIP area!”

“Thank you man! Yili, Yixing, come on!”

Yifan was pumped, Yili was skeptical and Yixing – well, he didn’t know what to do anyways so he followed Yifan into the club. It took about ten minutes until one of the staff members led them to the VIP area and left them with drinks and snacks. Yixing scanned the crowd, looking for a face that maybe Yifan was hoping to see, but Yifan just grabbed the champagne and poured them three glasses.

“Do you think that’s a good idea? You’ve taken painkillers today!” Yixing yelled against the music and realized he sounded like a broken record, repeating the same stupid question over and over again.

“Yixing, you keep asking for my well-being, you can drop the act and admit you like me!” Yifan shot back with a smug smile and handed him one glass.

“Well, it’s definitely not a good idea to mix painkillers and alcohol, that’s all I’m trying to tell you!” Yixing said, but as expected, Yifan didn’t care about those kinds of concerns and downed his glass before he gave the journalist a smooch on the cheek.

“You’re so cute!”

“Yifan, I mean it…”

“So do I! Now let’s get to the fun part!”

After a while, a few others (mostly those of the people who had followed the three to Hong Kong) had joined them in the VIP area. Yifan was totally turnt up, ignoring his ankle that he should actually go easy on and dancing the night away with the others after Yixing had turned him down when he had tried to drag him onto the dancefloor. Yixing decided to be the party-pooper for the night and stood at the sidelines to eye Yifan, just in case. Sometime around two, Yifan had disappeared but Yixing figured he’d just gone for the bathroom – all the alcohol he downed surely had to get out of his body in some kind of way. Yixing sighed and on the straw of his orange juice since he had decided it might be better to sober up a little. Suddenly a woman in maybe her late twenties appeared next to him. She wore a flashy silver cocktail dress with a black clutch in one hand and a can of Red Bull in the other. She had gotten her hair dyed blonde but her hairline already showed the black of her natural hair color.

“You look depressed, sweetheart!” She chirped and gave him a warm smile.

“Well, I’m just not in the mood.”

“Aaaaah, I see!” She said and leaned against the wall, “I know that feeling. Like, everyone around you is drunk and turnt up and you’re like the only sober person at the party.”

“Something like that, yeah,” Yixing chuckled.

“I’m Becky, what’s your name?”

“I’m Yixing.”

“You’re one of Yifan’s friends?”

He considered for a second but decided against telling her the truth. Not everybody had to know his life story. And the more often he told himself he only hung around Yifan this much because he wanted to write good articles, he realized that this was a stupid excuse. He didn’t have to tail Yifan’s 24/7, yet he did it. Eighty percent of the things he experienced with Yifan didn’t even make it into his articles, blog entries or Weibo posts. It frustrated Yixing, because he didn’t know what to do with the situation.

“Yes, sort of.”

Becky snorted.

“Sort of? You know that not everyone can just go and hang around with the prince in VIP areas of clubs – you surely have to be his friend.”

Yixing just shrugged his shoulders while Becky took a sip from her drink, eyeing him from head to toe.

“So where do you know Yifan from?” Yixing asked to shift the focus to something else because he was getting a little uncomfortable.

“Ooooh, you know. High society of Hong Kong and all that. When he came around here more often we occasionally ran into each other.”

When she saw Yixing’s skeptic look, her eyes grew wide.

“Nooo, no, no, no! I’ve never done anything with him! Everything we did was have some drinks in some clubs, we never… ugh, no! He’s not my type at all!”

Her comment made Yixing laugh which kind of broke the ice between them. They spent some time doing smalltalk and Yixing lost all of his sense of time. Somewhere between a lot of half-drunk giggles with Becky, Yili appeared.

“Yixing, I cannot find Yifan!” She proclaimed without a warning.

“What do you mean you cannot find him?”

“I looked for him everywhere. He’s vanished!”

Her face read immense worry and then she saw Becky – and her face fell in horror.

“What the are you doing here?!”

Yixing blinked confused when he heard her spit out a curse word for the first time in the almost two months he’s known her. Becky rolled her eyes.

“Relax girl, I just happened to be here too!”

“, you never ‘just happen’ to be around my brother!!”

Yili grabbed Becky’s Red Bull can and smashed it onto the floor. Some of the others stopped short and watched how the tin rolled under one of the sofas.

“Umm, what is going on here?” Yixing asked as Yili snatched Becky’s purse and started to search it, snapping something at the other woman along the lines of “Tell me, what did you give to him this time?!”

“She’s one of Yifan’s former dealers!” Yili threw at Yixing, frantically searching Becky’s purse for any kind of evidence.

Becky tried to snatch her purse away, but Yili wouldn’t let her.

“Give that back to me, I’m done with that ! I haven’t sold anything in over a year!”

Yixing was so dumbfounded he didn’t know what to do, so he watched helplessly as Yili pulled out something that looked like an LSD ticket, but Yixing couldn’t make it out correctly in the flashing light of the club. Plus, he really had no idea about these kinds of things. It could’ve been anything.

“Oh. Really! I’m telling you Becky, I’m going to ing end you once and for all!”

“Give that back to me!!”

Yili tossed the drugs into Becky’s face and Yixing’s brain finally gave out the order to his body to move. Shocked by the fact he had been having a nice chat with a drug dealer, he grabbed Yili’s arm and told her he’d help her find Yifan.

“I’m not done with you Becky!” Yili yelled at the other one as she got dragged away by Yixing whose brain came up with one bad scenario after another, all of them kind of ended with Yifan laying somewhere choking on his own vomit.

“I cannot believe this!!” The princess cried out as they walked out into the hallway that connected the main floor with the bathrooms and the other floors, “That’s why I didn’t want to come here in the first place! That !! Did she try to sell you something?”

“No… I … we just talked…?”

“Yeah, that’s always the case. ‘No, Yili, we just talked, we didn’t do anything, promise, she didn’t sell me any !’” Yili was so furious tears started to dwell in her eyes and Yixing began to fathom the amount of hurt she had gone through while Yifan was on the high of his addiction, almost literally speaking.

“Hey, hey, hey… Yili, calm down,” Yixing said and patted her shoulders, “Have you checked the men’s bathroom already?”

“No.” She admitted while her lips started to tremble.

“Alright then, I’ll go and check. Just wait here. Don’t try to kill Becky, okay?”

Yili nodded and gave Yixing an additional push into the right direction. When Yixing stumbled into the bathroom, the drumming of the bass vanished. The room was brighter than the club or the hallway, but the light was very soft – it was almost like stepping into an oasis of silence after you’ve wandered through one of the circles of hell. Another partygoer left the bathroom, not even looking at Yixing and then he was alone. Yixing heaved a sigh.

“Yifan? Are you here?”

Yixing thought he’d made out movements in one of the bathroom stalls so he walked over and knocked at the only door that was locked.

“Are you in there? Yifan?”

No answer. Yixing grunted and squatted down to peek through the space of the cabin and the floor. He clearly made out someone sitting on the floor and judging from the shoes he was positive it was the prince.

“Yifan, Yili’s worried about you, could you please open up and tell me you’re okay? I’m kind of worried too, so I’d really appreciate it if you let me in.”

Finally, Yifan reacted and unlocked the door which Yixing flung open.

“God, Yifan. What have you done?” Yixing asked as he looked at him.

Yifan was a wreck. There was no other way to put it. He was shaking, almost as pale as the white wall behind him and hiding his face in his hands while making incoherent noises that sounded like he was fighting against a fit of panic.

“Yifan!”

Yixing forced him to take his hands off his face and Yifan stared at the other one with dilated pupils and Yixing sighed.

“Are you high? Don’t tell me you’re high…”

“I… I feel so bad…” Yifan whimpered, shaking even though his body temperature was higher than usual, cold sweat breaking out on his forehead.

“God damnit…” Yixing mumbled as Yifan crashed into his arms and let out a dry sob.

“Please… I…”

“It’s okay, I’m here.”

Yixing had no idea what to do. He had no idea what Yifan had taken, no idea how he could treat a drug trip turned bad, no idea how long such a state lasted. He proceeded to hold Yifan, patting his back while the other one rambled some weird sentences about people that were out to get him, about things he’s been seeing, about stuff that scared the out of him so he had to lock himself up here.

“Nobody’s out to get you, Yifan,” Yixing said, but Yifan didn’t believe him, so he added, “I’ll take you home, okay? You’re going to be safe there.”

“Are you real, Yixing? Please tell me you’re real, I don’t know…. What’s going on here…”

The question threw Yixing totally off track. Of course he was real. How could Yifan not realize that?

“Yes, I am. Now come with me, okay? Please, I’ll take care of you. Nobody will hurt you.”

To undermine his statement, Yixing’s grip around Yifan got tighter to give him the physical reassurance that he was, in fact there, real, and here to help. Then he heaved Yifan up and dragged him out of the bathroom, struggling to hold him upright because Yifan’s legs did not cooperate with the rest of his body. When they stepped back out, Yixing heard a house remix of Sia’s Chandelier blasting from the main floor and in that moment he thought some higher entity was making fun of them. Help me, I’m holding on for dear life.
Yili saw them and when she did, she just shook her head, a gesture that met somewhere between ‘disappointed’ and ‘jaded’. In that moment, Yixing and her shared a moment of silent communication in which Yixing promised to take care of her brother. While he dragged Yifan to the exit he hoped the people around them were too -wrecked themselves to notice how awfully out of it Yifan was. Only when he had finally jockeyed Yifan into one of the cars that had brought the whole group to the club he allowed himself to take a breather while Yifan crashed down on the backseat. He pressed his face into Yixing’s lap and the other one hoped he’d not be throwing up while the driver brought them back to the hotel.

“I’m going to die Yixing,” Yifan announced with a sob and the certainty in his voice made Yixing’s stomach turn.

“You’re not. I won’t allow it.”

Because Yixing was still clueless about what to do, he let Yifan ramble away and reassured him over and over again nothing would happen as long he was there. The fifteen minutes drive felt much longer than that and when they finally arrived at the hotel, Yixing was thankful that Yifan seemed to have at least calmed down a little, even though he still seemed honestly freaked out by whatever his brain made up under the influence of the drug he had taken. It took Yixing awfully long to bring Yifan into the suite and Yixing sighed in relief when Yifan finally fell face down onto their bed.

“Okay, now, maybe, I don’t know, I’ll get you some water.” The journalist mumbled while Yifan sat up with a long moan.

“Stay with me please,” he begged while his hand searched for Yixing and Yixing obeyed and grabbed it.

Yifan leaned against the other one who started to run his fingers through his hair, hoping it would have a soothing effect on the other one. They stayed like this for a while, Yixing standing in front of Yifan who held onto his hand like a drowning man to a piece of wood and the younger one started to hope that the worst might be over already. But then Yifan started to whimper again, and Yixing couldn’t even react as he shot up, let go of his hand and stumbled into the direction of the bathroom. The journalist let out a sigh, not because he was essentially annoyed, but because he just didn’t know what he could do to put an end to this. Sleep? Water? Anything? But his mind stayed blank so he followed Yifan after hearing some rather ominous gagging sounds. When he entered the bathroom, Yifan laid on his back next to the toilet sink, still gagging.

“My ing god…” Yixing whispered and tried to make Yifan sit up again, “Yifan, please, don’t lay on your back, okay…?”

While he managed to get Yifan into a seating position, the prince said:

“Don’t look at me, please…”

“Yeah I already did, no need to play pretend here,” Yixing answered and when another gag made Yifan’s body cramp Yixing bent him over the sink again, then he went behind him to keep him in that position until Yifan was finished turning his insides out, “Let all of it out, maybe that’s best for you anyway…”

The downfall of the great Wu Yifan, Yixing thought while he held tightly onto him with one hand and the other one pushed the hair back that fell into Yifan’s face. For a split second he thought about that sensational headline forming in his head, but then he shook his head, disgusted by the mere thought of writing even one single line about this night. It took Yifan a while to end his vomiting - and when he did, he just stared at the wall in front of him, while he supported his head with one arm. Yixing kept his arms around the older one’s torso, giving him some sort of support, not only physically because he would surely fall over immediately, but also mentally, showing Yifan that someone was there to take care of him. The prince’s other hand started to search for one of Yixing’s and held onto it before he let out a sob and then said:

“I’m such a failure…”

Yixing didn’t know what to say so he didn’t. Receiving no answer at all made Yifan’s small sobs turn into legit tears and pitiful weeping. Yixing remembered that one time he had taken care of a drunk friend who had reacted similarly. But this was ten times worse, because his friend had cried because of something stupid like a cute kitten video she had seen. Today, Yixing had the feeling that Yifan’s dark side had won over again after it had been suppressed for some time.

“Yifan, stop please, take a breath. It’s not that bad…”

“It is though…!” Yifan squeezed out and Yixing worried that he might fall back into vomiting if he kept sobbing like this and didn’t allow his body to finally rest, “I’m so bad… I can’t do a single thing right…!”

“What happened happened,” Yixing said while he tried to sway Yifan back and forth like a child “There’s no use to dwell on it. You need some rest.”

“How will you ever be able to look at me again…?” Yifan sobbed.

“I’m sure I will be able to, now let’s go to bed, okay?”

Yixing was surprised how well Yifan cooperated with him and allowed him to bring him back to bed. The smaller one helped him to get rid of the shirt and pants he was wearing and while Yifan spread himself out on the whole bed Yixing went back to the bathroom to throw Yifan’s dirty shirt into the marbled wash basin to fill the sink up with water so the shirt could soak over night. After cleaning up the bathroom, because Yifan had left a mess behind, he went back to the bedroom.

“Don’t lie on your back, Yifan, I told you already,” he said and when he had changed into a different shirt and some shorts he pushed Yifan onto his side and pressed his body against the taller one to make sure he wouldn’t roll back.

It must’ve given a weird impression to bystanders – Yixing spooning Yifan and telling him he’d be alright. Yifan intertwined his fingers with Yixing’s, which was like a silent expression of honest gratitude, and somewhere along Yixing’s promises to keep taking care of him, Yifan finally fell asleep. Yixing knew he wouldn’t find any himself.