Boss Complex

54. Acceptance

The breeze filters through their coats, cold and hard, an unrelenting force that takes no mind of age, of wealth, of history. No, this wind, that blows endlessly wherever they go, takes into consideration not once, whether love was real or who betrayed who or who was the one who loved Zhoumi the most. Victoria and Yifan stare at the smooth stone in complete silence, a decade seems to long, like such a very long time when you count it out in days. And a decade is just a blink of the eye, when you measure it out in memories.

She feels the color that Zhoumi stained her with starting to bleed out, starting to lose vibrance with every passing day. She could have sworn that her love would not deteriorate with the moon running and the sun chasing, but now, she feels it in her bones, the passing of emotion. It doesn't mean that he tears hurt less, or that she longs to touch him any less today than she did before. It doesn't even mean that she will ever love anyone the way she loved him. He is silk on her fingertips, a luxury that she will always long for. To be loved and to love someone is not something so simple that you can define its boundaries with line or map. The twisted threads that change you without plan, without any way of controlling it, always leave knots. You can cut out those knots, hastily, leaving irreparable damage, gaping holes in your life that cease to string a timeline together, a path that Yifan took in his grief. Or you can take the time to slowly untangle those tight, impossible tangles of your heart, straighten out the bent out kinks in your heart, and look back at those bends with pride.

The blades of grass grow in on the hill, life has carried on with rain, with sun, bringing health to the nature around Zhoumi's man made stone memorial. The earth, unlike people, carried no burden but to take in the lives once lived a foot, and Zhoumi remains safe wrapped in the cool of morning fog, heated by the core of all life. His long grieved soul was safe and free, his life felt in the hearts of those that he touched, long after he met the end. Humans are like that. They never know just how much they will be missed. They always think that they will be forgotten, but unfortunately, there is no forgetting or measuring your impact on someone else's life. He is felt in smiles, in breaths, in the corners of every relationship and friendship, safely still present, as though he were born to bring that emotion to life.

Two very different people stand before him, both feeling completely unique emotions, both have mourned him in different ways, both having loved him in their unique paths.

Yifan no longer feels weighted to stand beside Victoria. He had given everything that he had to try to break her down, he had sabotaged her relationship, tried to sabotage her career, and she still did not crumble. Giving up was not in his nature, but it wasn't a white flag that waved, the first time he looked at her again. It was like he was seeing her again for the first time since before Zhoumi had passed, since before they broke up, it was looking into the eyes of someone that he did not hate, someone he did not resent, someone who cared about him. Sick with a cold, he had wanted to swing past her, striped navy suit leaving in his wake, expensive cologne and a reminder that she could never escape him. Instead he breathed in too quickly, inhaled too sharply and coughed hard and long in response. He felt her hand to his forearm and looked over as if to lash out, as if he would fight her, and instead he felt the shattering of ice, a winter thaw slow to begin within his chest. Reluctant but caring, she showed worry in her eyes, offering help despite the fall of their friendship, despite the breech on her confidence that he instigated. There she was, the woman that Zhoumi loved, at his side, offering kindness so matter of factly.

Yifan looks over at her now, caressed by wind, aged with time enough that lines marred the corners of her stony eyes as she gazed in memorandum at their friend's grave. When had those lines appeared? When had he stopped seeing her as the woman that she was, and started to see her as the woman he thought she must be? Short hair half hidden under a maroon beret, her slim body hugged by her long black coat. If Zhoumi could see her now, he would fall for her just as quickly, just as hard as he had the first time. This is the woman still that Zhoumi loved, and why had he spent so much time punishing her for a crime that she did not commit? Quietly, he reaches for her arm, stroking down from her shoulder in firm reassurance.