✧𝔻𝔼𝕍𝕆𝕋𝕀𝕆ℕ~ 𝒶𝓃𝒾𝓂𝑒 𝑜𝓃𝑒𝓈𝒽𝑜𝓉 𝒸𝑜𝓁𝓁𝑒𝒸𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃~✧

✧Lan Zhan- Blinded pt. 4 ✧

~FOUR DAYS LATER~

IT HAD BEEN four days since Lan Zhan had lost his consciousness. Four days. Both you and your gege, Xichen, had broken inside. Seeing your brother that was usually so strong and stable, lying broken on a bed broke your hearts.

Xichen was taking this far harder than you were. He hadn't been eating or sleeping, only lying by his brother's bedside and waiting for him to wake up. It hurt you seeing your brother  lying next to Lan Zhan, his hair tangled and matted and his red-rimmed eyes filled with tears. He didn't speak to you when you gave him food or when you tried to comfort him, he just laid his head on his brother's bed and cried all day.

You were also taking this hard, but you were extremely good at hiding it. Every time you walked out in the gardens or spoke with others, the only way they would know that you were hurting was if you would say it. You took care of yourself more meticulously when you were sad, to hide every inch of your imperfections from the world. To the Lan clan, showing emotion was showing weakness. So you tried your best to hide it, but at this point, after waiting four days without a sign of your brother waking up, even you looked imperfect.

And then one night, as you were lying in Lan Zhan's bed unable to sleep (you had taken his bed as he was lying in yours) you heard the sound of someone screaming your name and loud footsteps coming towards your room, echoing throughout the silent wood hallway of the Jingshi.

"What is it?" you called out, hoping, praying that something bad hadn't happened to Lan Zhan.

The voice of the person running didn't come to your ears, making you anxious. Was the person screaming in rage and rushing in to kill you? Were they not a Lan clan disciple at all, but a lunatic? You sat up on the edge of your bed, clenching your hands in fists, ready to defend yourself as best as you could without your guqin or sword by your side.

Thankfully, the man coming to see you in such a panic was not a homicidal lunatic or a insomniac disciple, but your brother Xichen. He surely looked like a lunatic though, with his tangled long hair flying about his head and his body shaking with sobs. When he collapsed next to your bed, you could smell sweat on him, and you saw his chest rising and falling rapidly, as if he had run a much farther distance than he actually had. The houses of the three of you weren't separated by such a far distance, so you could each be by each other in an instant during troubled times. But judging by the way your brother was gasping for breath, it was as if he had run a race.

"Meimei- Lan Zhan- meimei- awake- he-"

Because of how much he'd exerted himself, Xichen's speaking was hardly coherent. He was just gasping words out and holding onto your hands, trying to pull you out of your bed with his shaky arms. You heard your brother's name and the word awake though, and that was enough for you to guess the meaning of what your brother was trying to say.

Lan Zhan had finally woken up!

You immediately jumped out of bed, and holding onto Xichen's weak body, supporting him as you ran, the two of you rushed to your cottage, where Lan Zhan was lying. When you entered the cottage and saw your brother trying to sit up in bed, you began to sob loudly, overcome with emotion at your brother finally being awake, and shocked at his weakness. He was trying to push himself to sit up, but his body was weakened by his long time sleeping and by his excitement and panic, so he couldn't rise up at all.

"Didi..." you breathed softly, collapsing on your knees before the bed and sobbing.

You felt Lan Zhan touching your face with his shaky hands, feeling to make sure it was really you. When he ran his hands down your chest and felt your frantic heartbeat, he let out a weak cry and whispered, "Jiejie..."

"I'm here, didi," you said, trying not to choke or lose your words due to your tears. "Xichen is here too."

When Lan Zhan heard that his older brother was with him too, he began to cry. This made you cry all the more, and Xichen rushed to his brother's side to stroke his hair with one hand and hold one of his hands with his other one. This usually comforted Lan Zhan, but now he could not be consoled by this, and kept on crying.

"What's wrong, Lan Zhan? Tell gege... gege hates seeing you sad. Seeing you sad makes me sad," Xichen whispered, caressing his brother's body with gentle strokes of his fingers. His fingernails were long and his hands were strong, so this massage must comfort his brother. But even that didn't help.

"Didi, please," you begged. "Tell is why you're hurting. Why are you in pain?"

"Pathetic," Lan Zhan responded tearfully.

"What's pathetic?" you asked.

"Me... I'm pathetic," Lan Zhan sobbed. "Why... why do you love me?"

"Didi..." you gasped, too shocked by his words to answer.

"Do you even love me?" Lan Zhan said bitterly.

"Didi!" both you and Xichen cried out in shock.

"We love you so much," Xichen said.

"You're our everything," you said.

"B-but I-"

"But nothing," you said.

"There are no buts when it comes to our love for one another," Xichen finished.

Everything was quiet for a minute, then Lan Zhan took a deep breath and fell on his knees next to you two. He laid one of his hands on each of your shoulders and held onto you, as the three of you embraced each other and loved in the way only siblings could, with sweet words and gentle reminders.

When you three finished hugging and kissing each other, Lan Zhan said, "I don't want to go back to the lectures. They'll hurt me."

You and Xichen shared a look, making it obvious what you were going to do.

You looked your younger brother dead in his blinded eyes and said,

"Let's find the people who hurt you and teach them a lesson."