Waiting - A YiZhan Fanfic COMPLETE

Chapter 1

Xiao Zhan stood in front of a mirror, he ran his fingers over the stubble on his cheeks. 'I need to shave soon', he thought to himself. Zhan had not visited the salon in months. Work had been hectic for the past few weeks, since the outbreak of the virus.

Zhan works as a physician in a public hospital. His days were usually busy and he hardly had any free time for himself. Zhan loved what he did and he never complained about having to work long hours. He often volunteered to work extra time when more hands were needed. Since the outbreak of the virus 2 months ago, the hospital had needed more hands on deck. Zhan had nothing to do at home, so he spent most of his time at work. He could count the number of times he had been to his apartment on one hand.

Zhan was never one to fuss about his looks. He had a look that could be described as perfect and he achieved this with little or no effort. He never put any work into his looks but this time it was different. Yibo, his boyfriend of just over a year was coming back in three days.

Wang Yibo worked as an actor. He was really popular and many directors wanted him in their movies. He hardly had any free time as his agency was in charge of handling his contracts, informing him when the deal was nearly done. Yibo was 23 this year, 6 years younger than Zhan but he worked very hard for his age. He had been away for about 6 months working on a movie that was originally supposed to last only 4 months.

Zhan and Yibo first met when Yibo sustained an injury while working, he was taken to the emergency room and Zhan was the doctor on call that evening. For Yibo, it was love at first sight. It took him a few weeks to finally get Zhan to go on a date with him. Things went pretty fast from there. Yibo was really attractive and for the first time, Zhan felt somewhat insecure about his looks.

When Yibo first left 6 months ago, he and Zhan spoke often, at least thrice a day. Over time, this number reduced to twice a day then once a day. One time, Yibo had gone a whole day without calling or texting. At first, Zhan understood Yibo was busy and couldn't communicate as often so Zhan kept on calling and leaving messages regardless of whether he got a reply. Gradually he began to feel as if he was no longer as important to Yibo. He was also a busy person but he made out time every day for his boyfriend. He felt Yibo could spare him one minute daily if he wanted to.

Whenever Zhan called and Yibo didn't pick up, he would leave a message. He sometimes ended up leaving as much as 4 messages for Yibo who on the other hand, would reply at night before going to bed. This had become their routine. As much as Zhan didn't like it, he wasn't left with much of a choice.

'Honey, I'd be coming home soon. My flight has been booked for Saturday'.

Zhan was delighted when he got that message from Yibo on Tuesday night. He texted back, asking Yibo to return by road to reduce his contact with people because of how rampant the virus had become. He was at the frontlines so he knew the severity of the disease caused by this virus. Yibo was yet to reply but Zhan was already mentally preparing for his arrival. Thank goodness he was off duty starting Friday.

On Friday night, the government issued a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the virus. The number of cases had grown exponentially in the city where it was first identified and it was quickly spreading to other cities. Zhan was called back to work as they needed more hands. Zhan was worried about Yibo's trip and their planned reunion but when he arrived at the hospital, he quickly forgot all about his initial worries, he knew how to set his priorities.

"Dr. Zhan, thank goodness you're here", Meng Ziyi, the nurse attached to Xiao Zhan's clinic welcomed him with a distressed look on her face. There was no need to ask what she was worried about because Zhan could see there were patients everywhere. The wards were full to their capacity and the passages had been converted to make shift wards. "We had a lot of patients transferred over, too little space but there is nowhere else they can go. We are almost out of facemasks and gloves". She tried to fill Zhan up on the situation at hand as soon as he arrived.