The silver key was right there, on his palm.

The wooden box was sitting on his desk.

Yixing kept gazing at the key, glimmering in the sunlight seeping through the open window.

The key could unlock the box, but he was afraid. He was terribly afraid of the past coming to catch up to him.

Tao had told him that all things related to his past memories were in that box. He told him he had been watching the other boy diligently putting everything that was memorable to him into that box, because he knew he was so forgetful.

But who knew that he would totally forget everything after the dreaded accident.

He couldn’t be sure if all his answers were in that box. He wasn’t even sure of his questions.

Probably he was slightly confused when he woke up on the bed that day; Tao had been all over him, hot tears staining every spot of his patient’s outfit. He felt wronged somehow, but he felt it was natural as well. But he couldn’t put a finger to it. So the only thing that came out from his mouth was,

“Who are you?”

And Tao had been crying even more hysterically. Yixing didn’t understand how he could make a (supposedly) stranger cry?

When he was told that Tao was his best friend, he couldn’t believe it, because definitely he didn’t remember his best friend at all. He had been shaking his head fervently for a good measure, he felt like he would faint any time sooner.

Even so, Tao was still diligently visiting him. He didn’t press on Yixing’s memory anymore, just sitting there, giving accompany to the other boy.

Until one day Yixing caught a glimpse of a key-shaped pendant on the boy’s necklace.

“Oh, this! I almost forgot…” Tao was hesitant to tell the boy, but he did anyway. “You have a box in your house. You’ve been keeping everything inside… Your family’s photos, valuable things… well, a lot of photos are in there… This is the key to the box. You told me to keep it all the time because you’re afraid you’ll lose it if you keep it…”

Yixing had a slight headache from the information. He faintly remembered all the details that Tao told him. He was beginning to sure Tao wouldn’t lie to him about it. He was beginning to trust him.

“Please bring the box with you tomorrow,” Yixing requested to him.

And so Tao did as he was told. He brought the box with him, and he gave the key to him as well. Afterwards, Yixing asked Tao to leave him alone.

Of course, he had been wishing to get back all his memories. But he felt so scared it’s not even funny. The box seemed to taunt him, as if there were shadows around the box that would eat him alive.

But really, he was just over-concerned by this.

Then he tried to convince himself again, it’s just a box! And it’s supposed to be useful for me, too! I just have to regain all my memories from there. Once I open it, memories back, and everything is good!

So he ignored everything else and grabbed onto the box, pushing the key into its hole. Not too long after the box opened.

…

When Tao came back to Yixing’s room, he found the elder boy curled on his bed like a fetus, his back facing him. Tao stepped closer to see him, when suddenly he caught a soft sob from the boy.

“Yixing-ge?” he called out hesitantly, but the boy refused to face him. Tao noticed the disappearance of the box from the table, and he decided to walk around the bed to face Yixing.

“Gege, are you—” His mouth were shut automatically when Yixing shot up to him, surrounding him with his lean arms, and cried uncontrollably.

Tao had nothing else to say, even though he felt like crying together with the boy, he tried not to. Instead, he also wrapped the boy in a tight hug, rubbing on the boy’s back gently.

The grip on the silver key got stronger as well as his other hand where the photo of him and someone else, not with black hair like Tao, were getting wrinkled in his palm.

LMAO this fic was originally based on this... but idk it veered off far away as I typed this? So it's not really based on The Chaser anymore all in all... meh idk anymore ><