His assumption had been right. Or at least, Yixing felt like his assumption had been right because when he heard someone knocking at the door of the suite, it was like he hadn’t found even a minute of sleep. When he opened the door, Yili was standing in front of him with a paper bag in her hand she shoved into his while she walked to the dining room.

“Egg tarts from Yifan’s favorite store,” she informed while Yixing followed her, “How is he?”

“Umm, well, he’s been sleeping after a lot of crying.”

Yili let out a long sigh and sat down, head buried in her hands. Yixing was unsure what to do so he kept waiting for her to say something. Yifan was still in some sort of coma – Yixing had been so paranoid the whole night he had even checked on his pulse sometimes. Considering Yifan had not only mixed some synthetic drugs with alcohol but also painkillers prior to getting to the club, his concerns rooted in serious and logical reasoning. It felt like a miracle Yifan hadn’t had to be taken to the hospital.

“Thank you.” Yili said after a moment of thinking and put her hands down.

She looked like she hadn’t gotten any sleep herself. Her hair was done in a messy updo while she hadn’t even bothered to put on any make up. Her slumped shoulders gave away how jaded she felt.

“It’s nothing.”

“No, really. Thank you. I couldn’t have done it. Not this time. Not again.”

Yixing sat down next to her which she took as an invitation to continue.

“It’s just… I’m so tired, Yixing. I am so tired of him breaking all his promises over and over again. I’m supposed to love him unconditionally, despite all his ugly flaws. And I do, I really do. I’d fight the world for my brother. But… it’s draining me.”

“That’s okay though,” Yixing tried to comfort her but Yili only snorted distainfully.

“I could’ve easily taken classes at Peking or Qinghua University. I only went to Yale because I wanted to get out,” she confessed and looked straight at Yixing, “I left the country because I wanted to get away from my brother. Not because I didn’t love him, I just couldn’t do one more sleepless night in which he called me over to help get through another bad drug trip. I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing my brother one more time laying on his bathroom floor with vomit all over his shirt. So instead of staying in Beijing I fled. Sometimes he called me while he was in rehab, and I knew he needed someone to talk him out of trying to get his hands on anything, but I ignored him on purpose. And then I told him that I didn’t pick up because I was in class or asleep. And then he eventually stopped calling all along.”

Yili waited for Yixing’s judgement and played with one of the rings on her hands while doing so.

“I don’t think you should beat yourself up because of this. We’ve all got our limits and if that’s what you needed to do, then so be it. You can’t forget to look after yourself, after all. It doesn’t mean you let Yifan down.”

“He begged me to stay. I left anyway,” she retorted, almost as if she was trying to make Yixing say what a horrible person she had been. Yixing sighed and tried to find some words of comfort for her.

“You’re human, Yili. Yes, not an ordinary one, because you’re the Princess of China, but human after all. You can allow yourself some mistakes or selfish decisions once in a while. Yifan does it all the time and is forgiven anyway. Don’t try to make up for the things he lacks of. That is something nobody in this world could do.”

Yili stared at Yixing with big eyes, processing what he was saying and then she blurted out:

“What did my family do to be blessed with your presence, Zhang Yixing?!”

“Now, let’s slow down a little, you’re giving me way too much credit here,” Yixing responded while she got up and kissed his forehead, not to make a move on him, but to express her gratitude.

“No, you’re giving yourself not enough,” she mumbled against his hair before she stood up straight again and pulled a pair of sunglasses out of her bag. While she put them on to hide the dark circles under her eyes she explained, “I have to run some errands for the Halloween party. May I bother you to keep an eye on Yifan? I’m not expecting him to wake up any time soon, but… you know.”

“It’s not like I’m planning to go anywhere anyways,” Yixing said and cracked a smile.

Yili managed to return the smile before she said:

“You’re such a lovely person, if only you were my type now. And maybe straight. Or at least bi.”

“Well, I guess you’re more into types like Luhan?” Yixing teased and Yili let out a squeal.

“Tell me when Yifan woke up, I have to go now!” She tried to get rid of Yixing and dashed towards the door while Yixing giggled at her really blunt try to escape him.

When she had left, Yixing got up to check on Yifan who hadn’t moved an inch and was still curled up in fetus position on the side of the bed where the younger one had left him earlier. Yixing sighed and sat down next to him. Poor boy, he thought, and actually meaning it. He couldn’t shake the feeling off that Yifan would be able to do great things. Yixing was convinced that Yifan could be brilliant, that he could be what people expected of him. If only someone had shown him how. The journalist wondered if it was actually too late to try get Yifan back on track. The younger one huffed and then laid down besides the prince, running his fingers through Yifan’s blond hair. The touch made Yifan’s body flinch in a fit of panic and he threw his eyes open, a frightened expression on his face, grabbing Yixing’s hand as if wanting to shove it away.

“It’s just me, Yifan, relax,” Yixing said and it took the other one a second to collect his thoughts.

When he actually recognized Yixing, he sighed in relief and his tense muscles relaxed again. Then he grunted.

“ man. That was the worst.”

“Hm,” Yixing retorted since he wasn’t quite sure what Yifan actually meant, so he added, “Are you okay?”

Yifan let go of Yixing’s wrists and squinted his eyes.

“I feel like someone has chewed me up and spat me out again.”

Yixing scoffed at the comment, a sound that somehow indicated he found Yifan’s metaphor quite funny.

“You’re lucky you’re alive.”

Yifan didn’t respond to that, only the way he pressed his lips into a thin line indicated that he had heard Yixing’s statement and somehow knew he was right.

“You saw some really weird , you know,” Yixing continued but didn’t dare to ask if any of those hallucinations were still present, he didn’t dare to ask if he could finally take a breather and stop worrying.

Yifan opened his eyes again and looked straight at the smaller one.

“I’m only seeing you now.”

Yixing mumbled a ‘Good’ before he rolled onto his back and Yifan snuggled into his chest. Under normal circumstances Yixing would’ve told him to stay in his lane. But the way the prince clung onto his shirt told him to drop the attitude for once and just let him. Yifan wasn’t trying to be an obnoxious this time. He just really needed some cuddling right now. They stayed like this for some time before Yifan voiced one of his thoughts:

“You pulled me out of there, you know.”

“Yeah, you’re kind of heavy for such a lanky guy like you.”

“No, I don’t mean that,” Yifan retorted, ignoring Yixing’s attempt to fall back into his sarcasm to lighten up the mood, “I mean… okay, yes, I meant that too. But I was so out of it… I couldn’t distinguish between what I really saw and what that Acid let me see. And then you came. You pulled me back.”

Yixing didn’t know what to say about that but he felt like he didn’t even need to. Yifan sighed and placed his head back on Yixing’s chest that felt like bursting at the touch.

“I cannot believe I used to take that like candy… I went on for days like this…” Yifan sounded a little disappointed, but mainly shocked and he shook his head in disbelief, “You know, you grow tolerant against LSD and I didn’t think one dose would throw me off track like this…”

“So it was Becky.” Yixing stated.

“Eh? How do you know her?” Yifan asked and lifted his head once again to eye the other one in surprise.

Yixing told him how she had started to talk to him right before Yili had realized that Yifan was gone and how Yili had snapped at her and outed her as one of Yifan’s former dealers.

“Be honest with me, did you deliberately look for her? Was she the reason you wanted to visit that club?”

“No!” Yifan answered, “I really just wanted to go there because it has been the most fun. But I eventually found out that PLAY is pretty average… only my drug drips have made it so amazing. When I realized that I thought about leaving, actually. And then I ran into Becky. And we talked and it was like back in the old days and… she was so charming, so witty and funny and before I knew she offered me a five strip. I refused, I really did. But then she took one blotter off that ticket and shoved it into my hand and said that she’d be giving me that one for free.”

The more he talked, the guiltier he sounded. He stopped his report when he realized how stupid he had been but Yixing felt like Yifan really needed to talk about it.

“Go on, if you want to,” Yixing said and started to caress Yifan’s shoulder which seemed to give the older one the needed courage.

“I went to the bathroom and I was really close to tossing it away. I really really tried, Yixing. But… it just… I don’t know, instead of tossing it I put it on my tongue and… damnit…” Yifan cursed himself and Yixing continued running his fingers over Yifan’s skin that was still sticky, “I just… when it started to work I felt so amazing, I felt alive… and then everything went bad.”

Yixing clearly made out the trembling in Yifan’s voice and he thought hard about any words that might prevent Yifan from crying, because he surely couldn’t handle that. A drugged crying Yifan was bad, but an Yifan that started to cry in the wake of sobering up was worse.

“It’s over now, Yifan.”

“It’s not. Two years of rehab. Gone to in the blink of an eye, I’m back to square one. I was doing fine, and then I got careless and… I’m just horrible. I’ll forever rebound to that awful habit.”

“Okay, I may not have first hand experience when it comes to recovery or any sort of addiction, but I do know that recovery isn’t a progressive line up the scale. There will always be relapses. Just… I don’t know, take this as a reminder. You might not be fully recovered and you’re triggered rather easily, but that’s okay, we’ll just keep going.”

Right when the words had fallen off his lips, Yixing wanted to bite his tongue off for blurting out that last sentence. Yifan didn’t try to get into more detail on the ‘we’ though and buried his nose in the curve of Yixing’s neck, pressing his whole body against the other one.

“Thank you,” he simply said and the breath ghosting over Yixing’s very sensitive skin made him shiver.

It was still rather early, and Yifan was still rather beaten up, so they dozed off for another hour or so, before Yixing had to get Yifan’s weight off his left arm to make sure it wouldn’t fall off.

“I should take a shower…” Yifan mumbled after Yixing had apologized for pulling his arm away and waking him up.

“Yeah. And maybe brush your teeth.”

Yifan clasped one hand over his mouth and sat up. Yixing’s skin somehow missed the bodyheat already, but he banned that thought into the far back of his brain immediately.

“Oh , I’m so sorry…!”

“Seriously, I saw you throwing up and crying like a baby already… no need to apologize for reeking of alcohol and vomit. I’ve got a strong stomach.”

Yifan’s answer was a grunt and then he slowly got up to scuff his feet into the bathroom. Yixing proceeded to give Yili an update on her brother’s well being, but didn’t receive an answer so he grabbed his laptop and sat down at the dining table to get some work done.

Yifan had decided on soaking in the bathtub for almost an hour in which Yixing mostly roamed the internet and had to realize that the Disneyland trip hadn’t gone unnoticed, especially not the moment when Yixing had whispered threats into Yifan’s ear which got horribly misinterpreted by the tabloid newspapers and Yifan’s fans. As Yifan stumbled out of the bathroom to join Yixing, the journalist decided to swallow down his annoyance and not say anything though since Yifan still looked like and probably felt like it. When he saw the bag of egg tarts next to Yixing, his facial expression hardened.

“Yili was here,” he stated the obvious and let his fingers run over the shop’s logo on the paper bag.

“She was,” Yixing confirmed and went through the latest pictures he had taken.

Yifan sat down next to the younger one and looked at the food Yili had brought over.

“Man, I’m such an .”

“Okay, could we stop the pity party now, Yifan? I almost wish you’d get back to your old self, I don’t know how to handle that self-reflective side of yours!” Yixing snapped but tried to prevent any further damage in adding, “She’s fine, and she still loves you. Now eat those egg tarts.”

Yixing didn’t realize the long look Yifan was giving him before he reluctantly opened the bag, his stomach still a little funny from last night’s activities.

“Do you want some too?” Yifan asked and offered the bag while he carefully took a bite off the first pastry.

“No, I’m good. I don’t like these things that much. Thank you though.”

While Yifan nibbled on the egg tarts, Yixing suggested staying in for the day and he was surprised that Yifan agreed almost immediately on it. They spent the early afternoon in the suite, zapping through several TV channels and shows before they decided to relax at the swimming pool of the hotel. It felt awfully couply to lay down next to Yifan on one of the sun loungers but Yixing told himself that it was only for this day and that they’d be leaving tomorrow and then he could finally get a little distance between them again. For now, he decided, he’d be going easy on Yifan and wouldn’t put up a fight every time he suggested something. After basking some hours in the October sun that was still strong enough to cause some serious sunburns (and Yixing had had to talk Yifan into actually putting on some sunscreen like a naggy mom) they retreated back to the suite.

“I’m hungry,” Yifan finally proclaimed.

“Oh, that is a thing today, yeah?” Yixing said but smiled, indicating that Yifan getting hungry and actually having an appetite was a good sign.

“Do you want to stay in or shall we go to a restaurant?” Yifan responded with a smirk.

“Since we’re already here, just order in.”

Yixing let Yifan choose and order their dinner, since he figured it might be best to just let Yifan have what he felt like eating. And besides, Yifan had never ordered bad food. Even though he didn’t quite like the thought of Yifan taking charge of such simple things, deciding for Yixing like he was his little wifey that had to obey to his likings, he had to admit that the older never let him down in the choices he had made so far, starting from that goddamn Kobe beef steak on his first day. When the food arrived, Yili had messaged Yifan that she’d be meeting a friend from last semester at Yale who was in Hong Kong for an internship. Yixing almost wanted to ask if it was common for her to act like this when she was on vacation with Yifan, but he didn’t feel like an eligible person to be in the position to ask so he sat down and grabbed his chopsticks while checking the table.

“Oh my god!” He let out in excitement when his eyes locked with the braised pork belly which made Yifan chuckle.

“Scored once again!” The taller one said as he watched Yixing picking an extra large pork cube and putting it into his mouth.

The meat was so tender he barely had to chew it. It had been ages since he had last eaten that dish, and the slightly sweet taste of the soy sauce brought back memories from his childhood.

“That used to be my favorite dish as a kid – which kind of explains why I was so chubby in Middle School…” He heard himself chatter.

“Your mother used to make it?” Yifan asked and put some of the vegetables into Yixing’s bowl.

The gesture was so casual, it was almost like Yifan had been doing this half of his life already – providing Yixing with the stuff he liked, making sure he was eating well. For a split second Yixing imagined how this might look like to bystanders and shook his head to get rid of the thought. It was his luck Yifan had asked a question so his head shake could be easily connected to that.

“No, I grew up with my grandparents until I was twelve. My grandmother made that once a week because she knew I loved it. We couldn’t afford a lot of meat, but she made sure I’d get my favorite dish.”

The news made Yifan grunt in surprise.

“Why’s that?”

“Ugh, my parents worked in the city but had no money to raise me back then, so I stayed with my grandparents in the countryside for the time being.”

A silence followed Yixing’s words and Yifan forgot the chicken he had put into his own bowl for a moment. He blinked confused and then said:

“You know what, Yixing? I know nothing about you. You know everything about me, but I don’t even know anything about you. I thought you were from Changsha?”

Yixing rolled his eyes and snatched another piece of pork belly off the plate in the middle of the table.

“Technically, I am from Changsha. When I was twelve I was able to live with my parents in the city because they had saved up enough money to take me in and send me to a rather good school. So. Yeah,” he explained but Yifan’s look told the journalist the other wouldn’t let him off the hook that easily, “And there is nothing to know about me. Nothing important or of great interest at least.”

“Well, it’s of my great interest, so tell me.”

“Ugh, you won’t let it go, right?”

“Right. So you better get it over with.”

Yixing rolled his eyes and decided to let Yifan in on the essentials of his life, not too much to be pouring his whole heart out to him – just as much to satisfy his curiosity.

“Okay, so here’s the thing: My grandparents had some fields and some cows but it wasn’t enough to provide for the whole family, especially not when I came around, so my parents decided to go to the city to find work and earn some extra money. Because they couldn’t afford taking me with them, I stayed with my grandparents. I saw my parents once a year for New Year’s.”

“What…?”

“Yeah, our village is like three car hours away from Changsha. My parents didn’t have a car back then, the train took ages, so they barely made it apart from New Year’s to come around. My grandparents didn’t have a phone either, so… yeah, I didn’t really know my parents in my first twelve years of life.”

Yifan blinked, struck by shock. Yixing chuckled, because he could imagine how hard it was for Yifan to comprehend that concept.

“So… what did you do…?”

“Well, imagine: I went to school like any other kid. They do have that where I’m from,” Yifan snorted in embarrassment as Yixing’s comment made him realize how stupid his question had been, “But actually, my school was in the next village so I had to walk there every day. Took me about an hour.”

“Wait WHAT!”

“It was cool. At least in summer, because me and my friends often stopped by the lake on our way home,” Yixing shrugged his shoulders, “I mean, it’s not like I had anything better to do anyways. When I came home from school I’d help my grandfather in the field or had to watch the cows or something. I liked the walks. Sometimes I dragged them on to avoid my responsibilities, which mostly resulted in my grandmother scolding me because she had started to worry about me.”

Yixing looked at Yifan who eyed him with a mixture between pure shock and admiration.

“You… but… how?”

The younger one laughed.

“I didn’t know any different. It was normal for me,” Yixing said and Yifan had completely forgotten about his food, staring at Yixing in awe, silently begging him to continue, “Sometimes I even miss it. Life was so much simpler back then… it wasn’t easy, but nice and simple. I barely make it to see my grandmother ever since my grandfather passed five years ago.”

“So she’s alone now?”

“No, my uncle and his family life with her. She’s not able to work that much anymore, but she keeps herself busy, mostly playing Majiang with her neighbours.”

Yifan laughed at the comment.

“She’s actually a big fan of your family,” Yixing suddenly recalled, “She reads everything about you guys. She thinks you’re a very handsome man.”

Yifan rolled his shoulder back and put his nose up in pride, making Yixing avert his eyes against the ceiling once again.

“Well, then I think I should pay her a visit, huh?”

“Oh god please don’t!”

“Why though? She sounds lovely! Raising such a charming man like you!”

“You’d give that poor woman a heart attack! You’d cause a riot in the whole village!” Yixing retorted but Yifan didn’t seem to see the problem.

“So what? Wouldn’t that be a nice change for once?”

“You would not survive one hour there! You’d be running away screaming as soon as you’d step one foot into the kitchen of my grandmother!”

“Oh come on it can’t be that bad!”

“Yifan, you grew up in the Palace. While you were running around playing hide and seek with Tao in the Imperial Gardens, I was milking cows with my grandmother. While you got tutored by private teachers, I had like one pencil that I wrote my homework down with in the middle of the night after my grandfather dismissed me from field work, and nobody could actually help me because neither of my grandparents was literate. While you got dinner served, I had to cut vegetables for my grandmother to prepare dinner after I had picked them from our fields. It’s like you and me grew up on different planets. You’d be traumatized for the rest of your life.”

Yifan couldn’t really say anything against that. He curled his lips and seemed to think of a good comeback, but he never stood a chance when Yixing started to vomit his thoughts that he expressed in sometimes really clever rhetorical devices that defeated him every time. The perks of being a writer, proven to be effective once again.

“Well then,” the prince said and leaned forward and their noses almost touched, “Why don’t you just try me?”

Yixing wanted to say something, but his mind went blank and he cursed himself for it. The staring game was back on. Yifan didn’t even seem to blink as he pinned him down with his gaze and Yixing inhaled the air around him sharply and with it the scent of Yifan mixed with sun screen lotion and the shampoo he had been using. It clouded Yixing’s rational judgement, and Yixing hated it. And then he made the one big mistake that you should never do in a situation like this – his gaze shifted to Yifan’s lips that were slightly parted, slightly curled, alluringly inviting the other one to seal them with his own. When their noses touched Yixing realized that Yifan was leaning in for a kiss and in the last second he was able to pull his head away from him and he let out a long deep breath. Yifan slumped back into his seat with a frown on his face, looking disappointed. Before Yixing could explain himself, the older one asked:

“It’s that other guy, right?”

“Jesus, are you really doing this right now?”

“I’m just asking!”

Yifan acted like he didn’t care, but he did. The way he ground his two chopsticks in his right hand against each other and his hardened facial expression gave him away.

“It’s just not appropriate!”

Why didn’t Yifan see this? Yixing had overstepped the line too many times already. The Disneyland snapshots flashed in front of his inner eye and he didn’t even dare to think about what Ms. Wang was going to say about these as soon as he stepped back into his office on Monday. People were talking already. And Yixing wasn’t sure what was actually going on with him, if he actually wanted this to be over already so he could go back to his own life or if he wanted it to be over because he kind of felt the need to explore this thing without work nagging in the back of his brain.

“Yeah, pretty sure that’s just an excuse,” Yifan muttered and the vanquished tone in his voice made Yixing’s guts churn.

“Yifan, it’s…” Yixing begun and massaged his temples for a second to prepare himself for the next sentence that had been ghosting in his mind over and over again recently, “You could be so great, you really could… if you just acted like a normal person for maybe five seconds.”

The comment startled Yifan, something the other one had expected. He frowned and tried to find the right words, but he couldn’t. All that left his mouth was an offended scoff and a weak try to convince Yixing that he was acting normal.

“Normal Normal, Yifan. Not Royalty Normal, because that is something entirely different,” Yixing explained as Yifan bit his lower lip in frustration and he looked like a kid that got wrongfully scolded by his teacher for something his classmate next to him had done – he just didn’t understand.

It was unfair what he had said, Yixing knew that. How could Yifan possibly know the regular standards for a ‘normal person’ when his heritage had never made it possible for him to experience such life?

“Very well then,” the prince finally said as if making a decision and looked at Yixing again, “Tell me what I have to do. I’m willing to do it.”

These words astonished the younger one and everything he was capable of doing was to stare back at the older one who patiently waited for an answer. Fortunately, his journalistic brain came up with an idea that he might even be able to incorporate in his next article, because that was what he was and he needed to remind himself almost every day now. You’re the journalist. You’re the writer. Not the girlboyfriend hanging on his arm and you’ll never be.

“Okay then, try to go without all your indulgence for 24 hours.”

Yifan tilted his head, clearly not able to catch up on what Yixing was saying.

“Spend one day with me without your driver, your credit cards or your phone,” the journalist explained.

“Like… now?”

“No, as soon as we get back. The moment you’ve dropped off your luggage, we’ll leave the Palace and you’ll leave your title and money behind then. Just for one day.”

The prince gave it a thought and rubbed his chin. Then he nodded and said:

“Okay. Done.”

Yixing was surprised by how easy it had been to get Yifan to agree to this and he stammered:

“Umm… okay. Then… you better enjoy all of this extravaganza while it lasts.”

The older one ignored the comment as another thought hit him that seemed to be very much to his liking.

“Does that mean this is going to be some sort of date?” He asked and the old smug smile reappeared on his face and Yixing immediately knew Yifan wouldn’t even need one more day to recover and get back to his old ways again. The thought was somehow comforting, and the younger of the two only reluctantly allowed this thought to form in his head.

“Eat your chicken, it’s getting cold!” Was everything Yixing shot at Yifan before he turned his attention back to his own bowl, clearly feeling a hot flush in his face and he hoped he wouldn’t turn red which might give him away.

I hope this made up for the I've written before. Thanks  @ all who subscribed and commented.

Short notice: IDK about the next update because I will fly to Beijing on friday and I don't know how much time I'll have to update. I'll try but I can't promise anything.