29 years and nothing to show. {Hong Kuai}

[Wang Yao]

The multicolored lights flashed rhythmically dancing in time to the addicting beat. Flashing like the open hearts of the dancers, bearing their soul through their movements. Striving for attention, nearly begging for it, after all no one wanted to be alone. And so they danced, letting the intoxicating pulse help them draw eyes to their writhing forms. Nameless faces all competing for the same thing, who would get lucky tonight? The liquid beat, flowed like alcohol though their veins, driving them mad. Every soul in the room moved to the tempo, like a slave. Like it was salvation in a heartless world, and who knows maybe it was.

Amongst the crowd, drowning in the nameless mass another man danced. Desperately wanting to be one of the faceless crowd, to forget the world before him. His body twisted and moved like the fire in his veins was the only thing that mattered. This was almost like a battle, something that he knew the steps of very well. Very simple and addicting, swaying with your opponent gracefully, like life and death itself was on the line. His opponent, the entire room and yet no one at all. He didn’t recognize a body in the room, no one to dance with. No one to keep him company on his 29th birthday, but that was alright with him it had almost always been like this; being alone in a crowd was nothing new to him. He had to be the most lifeless dancer in the mass, eyes not really seeing his surroundings. Heart not truly feeling the pulse of the room.

He wouldn’t be recognized in a place like this, all shadows and colors and music, much too loud for his sensitive ears until he realized that he just didn’t care. And even if some stray pair of eyes called out his familiarity; it wouldn’t matter. Not to the Chinese man anyway, who only tonight had learned to dance in a mass who stunk of hormones and sweat and perfume much too sweet that he thought he would gag. Tonight after all was just another symbol of really how alone he was. A symbol of another year spent with his heart in isolation and of course of the years to come. He’d never, get out of this rut would he? It didn’t matter if he had abandoned his home that he had fought for. It didn’t matter how much he sat around and wished and strived. It actually didn’t matter if he tried to reverse the rotation of the earth, for if he thought that would work he’d die trying to do so. He seemed to be destined to this sort of life, where it seemed as though any kind pair of eyes skipped over him.

For once his slim neck trapped by a European collard shirt and not a Chinese one throbbed to scream into the crowd, he wanted to be heard. Life was passing him by, like an explosion he was in the collision course of and there was nothing he could do about it. But the rebellion was quieted with the alcohol he poured down his throat. Burning it into nearly nothing. Worming his way through the crowd he made his way to the bar. The multicolored lights flashing to the beat of another song flickered on his loose ink hair highlighting and changing them as it pleased. Finally stepping out of the crowd he ordered another drink, not really caring what it was and stepped outside into the cool night air.

The stars hung from wire, placed perfectly in the sky. Each one twinkling with it’s own individual light screaming look at me, look at me; Still it was beautiful. Yao walked to the railing and leaned against it. The cold metal seeped though his thin shirt biting his skin, he tried to pay it no mind, he’d get used to it in a second. He took a sip of his drink, it was strong, and yet he found himself taking another sip. He let himself relax and actually listen to what was going on. Finally realizing that the music had words.

I… did it for love
I… did it for love
I… did it for love

Yao almost snorted, how ironic. Everything he had ever done had been for love hadn’t it? And look where it had gotten him. 29 years of a hardened heart that a select few could shatter with a feather. That was, rather pathetic, wasn’t it? He raised the glass to his lips, the cool liquid kissing him, but he didn’t drink. Too caught up in his own mind, to get his mouth to function.

What’s hard for me is I saw your game
But yet
And still you got me
You touched the deepest part of me
You got my heart it’s jumping
I told you all of my secrets didn’t see betrayal
1 year 2 months and now it’s over
Didn’t think we’d fail

His siblings, his precious people, would truly be the death of him one day.

((OOC: Gah, wry so emo Yao? Also lolwut? Yao dancing? Idk, he’s tipsy.))

[Hong Kuai]

He was pathetic, wasn’t he? Kuai had been watching his brother for a while, just to see how he spent his birthdays alone. For one so attached to others, he had imagined that Yao would take it very badly, and he’d been just as right. His brother was drunk, just a little, perhaps, but drunk all the same, and the dancing he showed proved that. But at least he got attention, didn’t he? Indeed he did... but not the type Kuai knew he wanted. His brother wasn’t a complicated man. He was rather simple to figure out, really, especially after becoming so close--too close-- to him, so many years beforehand. He knew his brother, and he was tempted, so very tempted, to make him smile. Hell, it just wasn’t right to not see Yao smiling. He had always done so before, why not now? Something with relationships, no doubt... Relationships, tch. Kuai gave a mental sneer. He didn’t need attachments, no one longing for him, no one doting on him, and, more than anything, he didn’t need anyone caring for him.. Yao had cared too much, and now look where it got him? Searching for answers at the bottom of his glass. He deserved it, for giving his heart away so easily, for trusting and for loving, and for living as he had, for helping as he had... He knew, in the back of his mind, that, of anyone, Yao didn’t deserve a damn thing of what he’d been troubled with, but he wasn’t going to admit such a thing. He had no want to be caught up in his brother once more. He’d ran from that. After all, it was always only a matter of time before people faded away, and Yao would have been the same. They all would have. So he left. It was as simple as that, so why couldn’t his brother understand such a thing? Because he was a sentimentalist, a lover... a brother.

Kuai moved his gaze away from the Chinese figure onto the others, the dancers around him, slick with sweat. Disgusting creatures, all of them, but he kept his emotions in check. He always did, after all. He hummed gently, leaning his chin on the palm of his hand, elbow settled on the table. He had no drink. He wasn’t interested in making a drunken spectacle of himself in front of anything, even himself. He seldom drank at all. His right leg was crossed over his left knee at the ankle. He wasn’t dressed as one perhaps would for a special occasion. After all, why should he be? Yao, as far as he could tell, didn’t even know he was there, which was exactly the way Kuai wanted it to be. His shirt was traditional, Chinese of course, made of deep red silk. The collar was high and gestured to the left, black ties over the black border that continued down his side until the garment ended, just at his thighs. It was tied with a black tie around the waist, and the sleeves were long, wide. His trousers were loose and ended just under his knees, tight there, white cloth then, to cover his calves, and his shoes were black slippers. The Spaniards seem to think this strange, but he had little clue why. After all, they homed an international school--no doubt they had seen stranger. But people seemed to not become arranged to of what they did not wish to be. They were Spanish, or simply visitors, in which case, they thought it was some strange sort of tradition there. Idiots. Kuai hummed softly, tilting his hand to lean his fingertips against his cheek, looking back through the crowd. Damn, where was he? Surely, he’d not lost him... Ah! At the bar... drinking more... Tch, he’d get alcohol poisoning at this rate.

Kuai slipped his foot from his knee and stood, ignoring the rush of blood to the shifted appendage, unsteady as it was at the moment. He slipped his hands into his sleeves and slid passed the winding dancers. Whores, the lot of them. He kept his face passive, even as a male nearly trampled him, then snapped something off in Spanish. Kuai didn’t know Spanish so well, however, though he was learning. He had to, if he was to live here for more than a small time. And even in a small time, it was useful. Extremely so. He slipped to the bar without much more trouble, besides a cheeky little brat kid with puppy eyes, asking him if he could help him find something near the toilets. Kuai refused him. The kid found someone else to live his sexual fantasies with. He slipped behind his brother, inches from against, and slid his hands from his sleeves to slip his hand over his shoulder. “You shouldn’t be here alone.” His voice was soft as he sat himself in the stool beside him, hand running down his arm, to the bar. Still, he was passive, keeping his eyes to the line of alcohol on the wall. He was beautiful tonight, his brother... and it plagued Kuai to think of it. He had wanted it before, the touch of this man, and he’d left in respect of it. But he was here now, and they had been close once, as they physically were now... They could be close again. He could touch him, get him away from his mind, away from his obsession. He wanted to break him away from his head. He wanted to touch him as he had dreamed of touching him.

[Wang Yao]

It froze.

The world had frozen, completely. All the noise, the smells, the base that reverberated though his chest; had all stopped in their tracks. Even his breathing and heart, they had stopped as well. Caught in the cavern of his chest, too scared to beat because what if that meant this wasn’t real? Yao wasn’t sure if he could take his mind playing such a cruel trick on him. The cool glass trembled in his hand, threatening to slip and end its life with the use of the ground. To shatter and make shards that would only hurt others, pricking into the feet and fingers of those unfortunate enough to come across them. The only thing that seemed real at the moment was the hand on his shoulder and the voice in his ear. The voice and hand of his brother, Hong Kuai.

As the hand trailed down his arm, he knew at that instant that it just had to be real. It sent something akin to electricity through his core. Confusing the Chinese man, it’d been so long since someone he truly wanted to touch him had done so. In what seemed to him, a non sexual way, completely brotherly in his eyes. He tossed those thoughts away for the time being, they were unneeded. The older man struggled with himself for a moment, willing himself to move, to say something, anything. Just to make sure that Hong Kuai wouldn’t, couldn’t leave him again. Hoping to try and trap the other, at least momentarily in words. That words could capture and entwine the other so tightly he’d never leave again. He gulped, in an effort to talk, voice caught in his throat. Why, why when he needed it most did it fail him? Then again wasn’t that always the case? Every time, to everyone, everywhere, things failed them when they most needed it. Aha, such was life. He begged his throat to let him at the very least choke out the words he so wanted to say. And though the tightening cords tried to refuse he broke his way though.

“Ho-Hong… Kuai…?” His voice was maybe a little desperate, from the alcohol he’d tell himself later, even if that was a lie. Yao could believe his own lies if he so choose, it was his choice after all, his pathetic choice. What a fool Yao was, is, and would forever be? Possibly. He struggled for words again, finding it much easier to talk once he had breeched the wall once. “What... What are you doing here aru?” He still couldn’t control the desperation, and the pain that laced like venom with his words. Would it ensnare Hong Kuai like Yao so pathetically hoped? Yes, no, maybe, Yao wasn’t a god, couldn’t control time, no matter how much he wished too. All he could do was cling to the coat tails of luck, and pray that the fortunes smiled on him.

It pained Yao in the back of his mind that he was so helpless. That he had to rely on something as undependable as luck to keep Hong Kuai here with him, if only for a few moments. Yao had once been the sleeping tiger of the land. Could have made the very mountains themselves bend to his will if he had so chosen. But now, now he was nothing more like a tiger in a coma. Too worn out, too scared, to really be able to do a damn thing. A dreamless sleep, much more resembling a nightmare then any eternal darkness ever could. That, that was his every day, his every waking moment, Plagued with his failure, he’d never be able to run like that. Chained to the ground with chains he unknowingly made himself, he was trapped, because he wanted to be. And somewhere he had lost the key, or maybe he thought he had given it away. Yes that was it; Yao was convinced that he had given the keys needed to release him to his siblings; to his most precious people. And that when they left they had taken those keys with them.

Now the question was; would Hong Kuai give him his key back?

((OOC: Post is a little short... .___.' sorry. ))

[Hong Kuai]

People were pathetic as a whole. He supposed Yao could not be blamed for being such as they were, that emotion-filled soul, boiling over to broken hope and helpless romantics. Through a distant whisper, floating through his mind, he knew he wanted to be just like them, no longer so bitter as to break the man that had helped him so much when he was younger. How could he be so cruel to him? The world was a cruel place, though, and Gege had to learn this. Or had he? No, he hadn’t. Not yet. The emotions betrayed a possible bitterness, a wanted hopelessness. After all, the ones without hope were the ones who knew this world. Gege needed to know this world--know it as Kuai knew it, and he would be the one to teach him it. He was the one to leave him--the others had followed. He hadn’t kept in contact. Hell, he hadn’t even wanted to see him, to hear from him, again. It was fate that brought them together once more, and it was fate that betrayed him, in every way, at every turn. Fate was a horrible thing. Gege was a horrible thing. The man had nothing to live for and yet he lived, had nothing to dote upon and still he hoped. What he did he get out of it? Pain. It made no sense that he continued! Through bitterness and seas of turmoil, he still clung to hope, and Kuai wanted so badly to know why. Did it not hurt less not to hope? Did it not release the strain in the chest, simply not to dream anymore? It had worked with Kuai, had it not? Maybe... but, then again, here he was, disrupting his brother in a hopes that maybe, he could get close to him again.

No. He refused to go down that road again. Yao was impressionable. He’d leave him, and then what? Kuai would just be shamed again, once again, and he would run, as he always did, because if anything helped, running did. He could always run away from his problems. It had worked before, had it not? And, sure, he ended up in the same situation as he had been in before, but it was better this time. He knew how to treat it. But this.. Yao. He had to teach him as he had been taught, and he had to get him out of his head before he even tried to run again. If he was going to run, he wanted to make sure Yao stayed out of his head. And what better way to do that than to bed him? It had worked in school. If he got close to someone, or got the wanting to be close, then he had sex with them, and it all went away, because, in the end, that was just what people wanted. They didn’t want affection or adoration or love. They wanted sex. It was as simple as that. Perhaps they wanted sex with a specific person, but the feelings that they had imagined for that soul were just washed away after a simple climax. And then he could run. He needed Gege out of his head, because the thoughts of him caused him to be nauseated, because he knew he wanted him. He wanted his body, and in the condition of lust, he believed he wanted his soul and mind as well. He was under the impression that he wanted his entire being, and keep him there, but he knew it just came down to sex. And he would get that. He had to. And then he would run again, and it would be right. He would run to somewhere Gege would never think of, would never go, though, he had thought, prior, that Spain would be that place... He had been wrong, but he knew, now, that he was right. He was so right. He had to be. He couldn’t deal with wanting Gege, of all people. He knew...he had to know...

It was just sex.

His name was spoken with such pettiness, he nearly gagged. Could Yao have clung to him that much? Even after Kuai had left him so spitefully, so abruptly? He doubted he would ever understand this man, this brother of his, the twist of his lust and origin of his confused hatred, his bitterness. He wanted to look at him, to scan his eyes over that pretty face, but he settled, still, on the alcoholic beverages, of strange assortments, that lined the wall, and kept his emotions at bay. He had to control his face, his eyes. He had to keep his hands to himself, still seated on the stool, ignoring the pulse of the music, the squeals of the large-chested woman a few chairs away, and Yao... the desperateness, the pettiness... the hope. He had to ignore him the hardest, even though he still had to keep him tuned in enough so that Yao wouldn’t know, would never even suspect that, just with his name, he knew he couldn’t leave him alone tonight. He couldn’t leave him alone. God, imagine if one of these sick bastards got a hold of him? Yao couldn’t possibly fight them off--he was drunk, the damn fool! How could he have been so stupid as to drink, as to look like he did, to be as innocent as he was, as desperate for affection! He needed to slap him for doing that, but he didn’t. He couldn’t, as much as he wanted to. But Yao had asked a question, hadn’t he? And here Kuai was, just sitting there like an idiot! Obviously, Gege’s foolishness was contagious. Tch. Thanks, Gege. Kuai closed his eyes, leaned his chin on cupped hands.

“It’s your birthday, isn’t it?” He spoke lightly, as if he hadn’t been cursing out the man in his mind, unwilling to admit that the pettiness was almost.. cute... in a way. He was quite again, though, for he wasn’t sure if he should continue. Perhaps it was best, though, that he did... “You shouldn’t be alone on your birthday.” He paused again, then shrugged a shoulder--just a little. He still had to be still. If he moved, he felt. He couldn’t feel. Not now. Not with Gege... oh, gege... “Besides, I don’t trust that another wouldn’t try to steal you away with what you’ve drank.” He looked at him then and attempted a ghost of a half-smile. It was more than he gave most people, even in the more sensual moments. But Gege was special, and different, as he always had been. Besides, it was his birthday. Perhaps that was Kuai’s gift to him, then? He hadn’t a clue, which frustrated him more than anything. He wanted him.. to smile again, like he had, when Kuai was younger, when Yao was younger, and they were a family. He wanted him to smile and to hope and to dream, because Kuai couldn’t. He wanted his gege to be happy, as he had been. Though, he wasn’t quite sure if he could ever be the one to make him smile, only hurt.

[Wang Yao]

His heart would give if it could beat any faster. Hong Kuai, his beloved brother was taking much too long to answer. ‘PLEASE!’ The organ screamed, ‘Answer me! Answer me...’ Its tempo was painful. ‘Don’t leave me.’ And more then pathetic as well. His eyes were locked on Hong Kuai, barely blinking; they refused to flicker to anything other then his brother. Not for the all the sounds and pretty faces, that were just so hallow he couldn’t remember them. Not even the promise of his youth, of escaping death could tear his eyes from him. Death himself could stand next to him, demand his attention, and Yao would ignore his call. For even though death was the master of humans that Yao feared most, he loved his brothers more. It had been like this since day one hadn’t it? He couldn’t remember how exactly it had started or when his heart began to change. But his heart, it began to love them more then he feared death, and Yao had been unaware of this change.

… He had… someone had remembered his birthday? … Yao blinked shell shocked. Someone, had actually remembered? After all these years of not even a single word, he still remembered his birthday. It was enough to make Yao want to cry. Blinking back the tears that threatened to fall, he smiled, softly, sadly, pathetically. And… he didn’t want Yao to spend it alone. He rubbed at his eyes, in the most un-obvious way he could muster at the moment, which wasn’t saying much. He wished for the comfort of his normal attire, with its long familiar sleeves. It’d cover his face easily, let his emotions slip behind red silk, he could fake merely being tired. But no, not in this, damn this westerner’s outfit. They were so silly, no not even silly, they were stupid. …. “You… remembered?” His voice could barely be called a whisper, so nearly silent and pathetic in tone… The Chinese man had to look back among his precious memories to remember the last time someone remembered, even longer if he wanted one from his siblings.

Steal him away? Yao nearly laughed. Who in there right man would try to steal him? He was much too broken, much too pathetic at the moment. Then again some people did get their kicks out of people like that. But it’s not like he couldn’t fight them off. Drunken, shaky limbs could still defend himself. Blurred vision could still pick out what he had to hit. He could still deliver enough force to send someone tumbling, he was still Wang Yao, drunk or not. But then again, maybe he was over estimating himself. But, even with his slurred, blurry mind something about the way Hong Kuai phrased that sentence hit a funny cord. There was something just not quite right, but he couldn’t place his finger on what. He shook his head, ink hair falling over his shoulders. It was probably because Kuai had been away for so long. He’d been traveling, probably had been influenced by some sort of filthy culture.

At that smile, just that small, fleeting smile that Kuai would sometimes allow himself. Yao felt his heart break again and wanted to reach for his brother. Grab him and bring him close, hug him, cling to him and never let him go. He wanted to be near his beloved brother again, as they did when they were both so much younger. Back when Yao felt as though he could hug the other freely, without the other’s permission, as family tended to do. Back when he felt like he wouldn’t be hugging a stranger. He wanted his brother back. His throat felt as though it had been cut as he choked down the other’s name. When had it become like this?

Yao forced a smile back onto his face, in a way begging Kuai… for what? Yao wasn’t even sure anymore. Life was just, all so confusing now days. And for what reason? Why? Why couldn’t life be simple, like it used to be? Why couldn’t they just all live happily, smile and laugh together. Why did so many things have to taint their family love? It seemed as though the world was against them. As though they were all never meant to be a family in the first place. But if that was the case then why did Yao love them as he did, he shouldn’t care for frivolous things so much. His hand clenched painfully. He wanted to reach for Kuai. He wanted his brother, his beloved, precious brother, to prove that it was real.


OOC: TIIIIRRRRREEEEEDDDDD D8 'm sorry I can't spell check or anything atm. Please forgive me.

[Hong Kuai]

How long would it be before he had to leave again..?

Desperation was all over his poor brother’s face, and Kuai knew it would have to be soon, his departure meaning. He couldn’t stay here under such strain. He couldn’t give Yao what the man truly wanted. Yao wanted love. He wanted a family. He wanted his brothers and his sister. He wanted to be together with them again, like how it used to be, without the moderate poverty, perhaps. Or maybe even with it? Some people thought that, when in times of necessity, times of poverty, families grew closer to each other. Perhaps it was only natural... Kuai didn’t know. He never really understood family, not since his own died, and, even then, he was too young to really understand, or to really grab a distinct formality with the word, with the religion Yao seemed so apt to follow, with the thing that came so naturally to the Chinese man. Gege.. Yao... how was it so easy for him to love others, after everything he’d been through..? Kuai knew, he didn’t really know all too much about his Gege’s past, before they had met, before every ounce of the word ‘family’ Kuai had thought he knew, was wiped clean and replaced with simply.. Wang Yao. Was that a strange thing to feel?

Complete and utter hope, then complete and utter.. fear?

He had been so, horribly scared that Yao would up and leave him alone, so he had done it first. He had done that to him.. Had it really made him feel any better? He knew for a fact that what he wanted from his brother, his brother would never give. Yao wanted something too different, but, Kuai knew, if he played his cards correctly, then he would be able to do whatever he wanted to with him, which part of him still wasn’t sure was a good thing or not, and he was too wary to say it wasn’t. He wanted Yao.. in his bed--in him, around him--he didn’t care as long as he had him, as long as he could see his brother in such a way, in actuality instead of fantasy. He longed to hear his brother sing, the sweet songs of ecstasy... on his birthday. On his birthday. He knew it was wrong.. so.. so wrong, but.. morally? It wasn’t as if Gege was his actual brother. It would be fine. It would be okay. Yao would want it.. wouldn’t he? It wasn’t as if he was a virgin. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t done it before. Kuai wasn’t stealing from him, then. He wouldn’t ruin him, because his brother wasn’t innocent, though he wanted nothing more than to know the name of the man who’d taken him... Though, he would never even think of thanking him, of course. He’d rather simply bash his face in with the side of his foot. No one was allowed to take his brother’s virginity without Kuai’s expressed permission, something that he didn’t even think he himself had... Of course, it wasn’t as if he was taking his virginity. He wasn’t. There was no way he was.

No one could go through life looking as Gege did and not have his virginity taken before the age of eighteen, much less Gege’s age. He could barely hear Yao’s words over the noise of the club, of the bartender flirting with some blonde-headed girl who looked as if she belonged on some street corner, or of the DJ’s music, blasting all around, of the laughing and yelling, the discussions and heartache. Kuai kept his faint smile upon his lips as he examined his faint-hearted sibling. He hadn’t answered yet, too busy with his own thoughts.. that, and such a question was usually rhetorical. Nevertheless, he nodded faintly. “Of course I did.” He paused, unsure of what else to say to the man. What else was there? He pursed his lips a little and looked away, glancing back occasionally to the man beside him. After a few moments of thought, he turned back to him and reached out a hand to run his fingers over his cheek. “We could celebrate, do you suppose..? We can go back to my room. I might have some fireworks still.. We could set them off, if you want.” He did love fireworks, even if, what he had in mind, was something different. If the man liked the idea, and persisted it, then he wouldn’t mind waiting until they were gone to take the man to his bed, to celebrate even further.

...On his birthday...

God save his soul.

OOC: A long-awaited post, and it wasn’t as long as I wanted it to be.. sorry... But.. some Inside to HK~! ^_^;

[Wang Yao]

He had always been proud of the younger boy. Always. In a way Yao couldn’t remember a time he wasn’t proud of Hong Kuai. Such a calm, quite boy, respectful, did his studies, intelligent, independent, a perfect child. Yao had always admired that about the boy, at times, Kuai was more calm then Yao himself. So why did he now wish Kuai would break that? Would open his mouth and speak every single one of his thoughts like Im Yong Soo seemed so inclined to do. Maybe because only then the elder Chinese male could feel comfortable. Get rid of this tightening feeling in the pit of his stomach. That was so very much like a python constricting its prey. Could Yao really get the younger to the say words he wanted to hear? Longed to hear? Hong Kuai would not lie to him right? If he spoke those words that Yao wished very much so to hear… it would be the truth… wouldn’t it? If he could get Kuai to say he’d stay, he would, right?

Yao had been devastated when Kuai left home… him. The one who he truly believed would never betray him, leave him, had done just that. Kuai had left him with his heart in his hand, shattered, as the warm liquid dripped from the cracks between his fingers. Yao remembered kneeling on the ground and frantically trying to recover the liquid. Pale hands poked out of long crimson sleeves and scooped it back into his hands, tainted with the dirt it fell on. The liquid from his heart and the dirt from the ground mixed together in a harmony of regret. His hands only helped to further interweave them. This was disgusting. Yao didn’t want to feel the warm, tainted liquid on his hands. No, he wanted the feeling of intertwined fingers within his own. The fingers of his brothers and sister. He remembered back when their hands were only big enough to grasp two of his fingers as they wandered around town. Laughing, crying, as long as they all held hands, Yao truly believed them to be happy. Family was happiest together. Family was strongest together. So why, why did they all have to leave him. One by one, their fingers left his hands, until the Chinese man was forced to stand alone. Tears staining his cheeks.

His sanity, his sanity. How much of it was really still intact? Less then the elder Chinese man knew. Yao had always over estimated his understanding of himself. Always believed himself much stronger, much wiser then he truly was. So when his siblings had left him, he didn’t quite grasp the damage he held been dealt. Didn’t realized how, simply, pathetic it was to still cook a meal fit for five people if not more. To still set their spots at the dinner table. Silently eat his dinner while the other bowls of rice went cold, untouched. They used to have such healthy appetites.

In the same silence he ate, he also cleaned up the table. Packing each bowl of rice, all the extra food away to eat later, Yao could never bear to let food go to waste. Yao was careful not to make noise while cleaning up, while eating. It just, didn’t seem right. It didn’t sit well with the Chinese man. If his family was not here to make noise while they ate—as Yao had grown accustomed too--who was he to make such noise? The noise, the familiarity, would return one day…. One day, they would all sit around his table again and eat as they always had. Family ate together… They would return to him.

His hands curled in on themselves. Nails digging into the hardened flesh of his palm. Waiting, he’d never hated it more in his life. Why was Hong Kuai taking his sweet time in answering? Couldn’t he see the distress written clearly over his elder brother’s face? The pain in his posture. Or was Kuai simply being cruel?

He had… Kuai had most definitely remembered. And as the younger’s fingers brushed his cheek, Yao smiled again, warmly, painfully, not even the vaguest idea of a guard protected him. But it didn’t matter to the elder man, his younger brother, his Didi, was here, with him. Yao brought his own hand to the other, delicately grasping it, interlocking their fingers. “Of course, I would be… delighted to accompany you back to your room Didi.” As though Yao had to think twice about the decision. “you still have fireworks?” His smile stunk of nostalgia. “That sounds lovely Didi.”

Yao could not remember the last time he had been so happy on his birthday.

Clearly a god smiled upon him.

omg, a reply… apparently, watching the first 10 minutes of Tarzan at 3 in the morning gives me Yao muse. *chuckles* I’m soooooooo sorry it took so long. ;A; I had intended on replying earlier, I just like, couldn’t do it though. I love you hunny! <3

Also italics = Chinese yes? I didn’t want to go look up how to say it in Mandarin… and possibly further embarrass myself in front of Chinese speakers.