Winter Wind (YiZhan)

42. Rip

"If you walk away I will never let you back."

"Alright."

This is what hurts Xiao Zhan the most.

Alright? Alright?

How could he say alright?

The tears have dried off his face now, and his mind is a bit clearer but it just cannot move past this level of nonchalance from Yibo's end.

'Feelings' have always been a fickle thing to Xiao Zhan, and this is why he has never truly deluded himself into latching onto anyone. But Yibo... he latched onto him with his heart in his chest, his eyes wide open and his brain in his head.

Yibo, he loves,without a single shadow of doubt.

Beyond the hurt and betrayal he feels in the current moment.

And Yibo he has always believed, loves him too. So how then could he be so nonchalant?

Or perhaps with Yibo, the conviction is not as strong? Perhaps Yibo's passion for him burned brighter but his runs deeper?

Perhaps.

However he cannot get this statement out of his mind, and it keeps replaying until finally he reaches for the stereo and turns it on.

He would have preferred to play some music from his phone but that phone right now, represents Yibo and how easily he can reconnect back to him and he wants nothing to do with it.

He rolls the window down, and welcomes the breeze that caresses his face. Then he inhales deeply and feels his head clear up a bit more.

"If you walk away, I will never let you back."

"Alright."

It hits him then.

Perhaps this was just an acknowledgement of his statement... and nothing else.

Perhaps Yibo was simply just saying, 'I've heard you'... and nothing else.

He breathes in more easily then, and pushes away the heavy suspicion of his possible delusion.

He on the other hand had all but wished emotional catastrophe on him.

"I hope that it hurts you... deeply."

"And I hope that it rips you apart... to pieces."

He should have stopped there, but he couldn't.

"... come find me. I'll put you back together."

He takes another deep breath.

Yibo is from time to time perhaps going to crack open, but he just had to remind him in that moment that as long as you come find me... as long as you come back to me, I'll put you back together.

He means it with all of his heart.

Because he cannotlose Yibo. He refusesto.

So he forges on with his trip.

A few familiar tunes come on the stereo, and for a while it is enough to take his mind away from things.

Never however, away from Yibo and it's the little, sudden memories that hits him the hardest.

Yibo's face buried in his neck... Yibo's arms locked around his waist... Yibo stirring into his eyes, so deeply... trusting and full of adoration. He misses that, and he misses him.