How do you live when nobody wants you to live?|| Wong Yukhei

There's a stranger in the shadows

Me: I'll mAkE The nExT ChAptEr lonGeR
Also me: 1067 words

I'm sorry ;-;

The idea is though, that I will make 2 or 3 updates this week so that it isn't a 3000 chapter, so...yeah :3

Within this hatred filled world, there are the dead eyes of the living, as if their soul is in such deep coma that they are the walking dead.

Xuxi has become one of them. His eyes soulless, lifeless as he walks around. His feet are dragging with invisible weight as he pulls chains behind him.

He doesn't know if he can keep staring at those dead eyes in the mirror any longer.

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Xuxi smiles. Xuxi laughs.

Xuxi fools around. Xuxi plays with them.

...

Xuxi's eyes don't sparkle anymore.

Xuxi's smile falls the second he thinks no one is looking.

But Xuxi smiles. Xuxi laughs. Xuxi plays. Xuxi...

He doesn't know where Xuxi has gone. At least not their  Xuxi because this stranger standing in front of him can't be his Xuxi.

He smiles back at the stranger, his own eyes not quite shining the way they should.

The stranger turns around, his figure slumping slightly, and he no longer looks larger than life, no longer their sun and their brightest star. Now he's just the moon.

The moon waits for the sun to reflect on it to shine because it cannot shine on its own.

The moon has a side so dark, only the meanest of monsters can see it.

The moon hides those monsters so that no one can see.

Xuxi is now the moon, and he doesn't know how to transform it back into the sun.

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They are sitting in the living room, their muscles connected, smiles pressed on their lips when he notices: there's one body missing. A smile and a loud laugh are missing, and he can't help but frown, his own smile falling when he notices.

He stands up, moving Yangyang out of his lap and flashing a smile to Sicheng's questioning eyes.

His steps are loud on the hall's floor, resonating through the walls as he moves. Stopping when he does, in front of the brown door that leads to Xuxi's and Sicheng's room and he doesn't know why, but fear creeps up his throat as his fingers brush the doorknob.

Quietly, slowly, he finally opens the door.

Xuxi is on his bed, his head resting on his pillow and eyes closed, and he's pale, paler than he's ever been. He approaches the sleeping boy and kneels beside him, his eyes travelling from Xuxi's arms to his chest, from his chest to his neck, from his neck to his face, and then they stop.

It takes a while for him to register the image in front of him.

Tears were staining the other boy's caramel skin, running down his cheeks, clashing with the soft pillow. His eyebrows were knitted together, a painful frown decorating his usually relaxed features.

He doesn't understand, he doesn't understand, but he so desperately wants to.

Understand what happened to Xuxi.

Understand what's wrong.

See what he apparently cannot see because he feels that if he blinks, then maybe Xuxi will disappear.

But then it hits him, Xuxi has already disappeared. He did when his smile stopped shining the way it was supposed to. He did when his eyes lost their spark, and only now does he realize that...he has been gone for so long, and none of them noticed.

His own tears fall down his cheeks, matching the ones on the other boy's face. His voice has betrayed him as he calls Xuxi's name, but all that comes out is a strained croak.

Xuxi's name stays on the tip of his tongue, but as his tears fall and fill his soul, "Xuxi" never leaves his lips. He feels like he's drowning, drowning in his own tears but, it is not his tears, the ones he's drowning in. It is an ocean of Xuxi's tears , and he gasps, looking for air to fill his lungs because Xuxi is gone .

He knows, he sees, he feels Xuxi right there, with his fingers intertwined and his thumb running down his cheek but, then again, he knows, he sees, he feels, how Xuxi is fading away.

There's a shadow there, a shadow of Xuxi hiding behind this stranger that has taken over his body. There's a shadow there, a shadow of the smile he used to carry, hiding behind the tears that have spilt over the mattress.

Because there's a shadow. There's a shadow growing behind Xuxi, taking his body, latching onto his soul, sipping his life away.

There's a shadow!

He wants to scream. Warn the other members of the stranger living in their house. Cry that Xuxi is fading, and he can't.

He wants to run out of the room, out of the house and never look back, and he can't. Because he wants to stay, latch himself to Xuxi's long body, wrap his arms around his friend, press his lips to his head, take his hands on his own and drag him away from the shadow and the stranger...and he can't.

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He misses the fake smiles and the plastic laughs. He misses the quiet game nights and the tear-stained cheeks.

Why?

Because then he could at least see the remnants of the Xuxi he knew.

Now, Xuxi's eyes have become best friends with the floor, and his smile has found solace in the cameras as it is the only time it decides to appear.

Now, game nights are quiet because his friend no longer goes. His tears have become shy. They hide behind closed doors so that no one could see, just like the dark side of the moon Xuxi had become.

He wants to understand. So desperately understand...and he can't. Because Xuxi is now just a stranger.

Because the fire has even burnt the ashes, the only remnants of Xuxi he still had, and now, he doesn't know if he wants to understand.

He's yet again drowning in his friend's tears. Water is filling his lungs instead of air, and, he sees how Xuxi's lips have turned blue, his veins popping, his eyes red, his skin pale, water filling his lungs, oxygen no longer reaching him and...

Kunhang is scared. Standing there, staring and trying but failing to pull Xuxi out of the water, Kunhang is terrified.

Because what if...what if Kunhang wasn't able to get there once the water covered Xuxi's head completely, drowning him and killing him so slowly, none of them would notice until it was too late.

Notes:

bruh....I cried with my own story 🤧

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