Six months to live (ZhanYi)

23

The day came as if the last grain of sand finally fell into the growing pile at the bottom of the hourglass. The countdown was over and today was the day. The dreaded day.

Yibo didn't sleep, of course, he didn't. He tried, he really did but it was useless. After he left the prison the day before, nothing felt right. Everything has been off for awhile but it was especially uneasy then.

The whole time Yibo was with Zhan, he was trying so hard to be in the moment and to be present but after he left, it felt like he wasn't even there in the first place. The ride home was like someone had tied one end of a string to his heart, and the other to Zhan's and it just kept getting tighter and tighter.

Today it will finally snap.

Getting ready to go to prison to see Zhan one last time before he was executed was excruciatingly hard. He could barely move without wanting to cry. Everything hurt, physically and emotionally.

This was all so wrong. So so wrong. It wasn't supposed to happen and Yibo knew it. He knew Zhan wasn't supposed to be in this situation and he knew the universe fucked up. It didn't even make sense.

It was just one big sad story and Yibo never really was a fan of tragedies, but it seemed that whoever was writing their story, certainly was. Fuck them. Whatever forces decided that this is how things were supposed to end. Fuck them. Fuck it all.

Yibo was sad, devastated really, but mostly, he was just angry. Angry at how things played out. Angry that he didn't tell Zhan he loved him sooner so they could be together longer. Angry that the charges and punishments were what they are in the first place. He was just...angry.

Every bone in his body felt on fire as he thought about how messed up it all was.
How unfair and unjust. It all was just one giant mess that Zhan and Yibo were right in the middle of. A mess that just kept on getting bigger no matter how hard anyone would try to clean it up.

The whole ride to the prison was miserable. Of course it was. Even though Yibo would get to see Zhan for an hour or so before they had to leave and come back for the actual execution, it still felt like he was on his way to the end. Whatever that even meant.

It almost felt as if he had dissociated from reality by the time they arrived. As if all the emotions he felt had been so much to bear, his mind just decided it couldn't do it anymore and stopped feeling them.

That wasn't quite the case though, Yibo could still feel the sadness that was so strong there were no words that could explain it, and the anger that had been inside him for a while now from how much he truly despised the justice system for failing Zhan. There was still the physical pain as well.

His head hurt, his stomach hurt, his eyes burned from how much he had been crying lately and most of all, the knot in his stomach seemed to become bigger and tighter the closer they walked to the prison.

Yibo didn't even really know how he was managing to do it in the first place, to walk himself up there. Every fiber in his body just wanted to fall to the ground and never get up. To just disappear and leave this whole mess behind.

Getting through security felt like he was checking into hell. Checking into a place that was going to destroy him forever. It was, wasn't it? This last visit was going to be the death of him and Yibo wasn't quite sure if that was literal or not.

He didn't know if he could do it. He's been questioning his strength this whole time.
No part of him was ready for this kind of pain when he committed to getting to know Zhan. He was ready for it to hurt and for it to be difficult, but he wasn't ready to feel like he wanted to die.

He did. He wanted to die and there was no denying that anymore. He wanted to go with Zhan no matter how much he tried to convince himself that wasn't what he truly desired, it was.