Fated (Wangxian)

#21#

“Little one, won’t you tell your Ayuan gege what’s hurting you, my cute little Bunbun?!

We’ve been walking for half an hour now a-and I can’t see you being this quiet and upset anymore, Yingying. Please… talk to me-” Ayuan whispered softly when suddenly his words were cut off by BunBun's weak sorrowful cracked voice choked with tears, “He said I could only be a curse…”

“A curse, whom Zhan gege brought from the streets and hid in the palace to save his people from my misfortunes. He said he would never like me as long as I was alive but… even when I was dying and… he still said NO.

I never did anything Zhan gege didn’t want me to do.

I disliked gege’s leftover bland food but never complained or wasted it. Slept on his old bed and at the time he wanted me to, woke up at the time he wanted me, ate, drank, talked, wore those suffocating heavy clothes and did everything he wanted me to then how come he still didn't know who I was?!

Why was I unable to become friends with him? I thought Zhan gege cared for me and liked me... but like others, he too thought of me being a curse. A curse that should've never been born.

I'd long accepted my life on the streets but never once believed I was a curse.

It was the last precious memory I had of my mama and baba. The last thing I remember, their words, their voices filled with love and their eyes shining with tears of sadness when they told me, making me remember that I will forever be a blessing to them, before I was sent… somewhere far away.

As young as I was, I remember them promising to save me from the bad people soon, urging me to never think otherwise, never believe their hateful words and never support their wrong actions.

When I used to live on the street, I've been waiting for my death to reunite with mama and baba while watching everyone fear me, hate and abhor me.

That day, when Zhan gege saved me, I was terrified... for the first time in my life, I was afraid of hurting him with my misfortunes. Doubting my parents words and believing the words of all the people around me who kept on telling me that I was a curse who took my parents life.

I tried to run away... to save him from myself. After watching my mama and baba, the only ones who believed that I wasn’t a curse, getting killed in front of my own eyes, I feared if the same might happen to Zhan gege too.

But he didn’t let me leave. His guards captured me, brought me to the same palace where I last saw my mama and baba getting killed but after spending a few days living close to his chamber, I wasn't feeling scared anymore. I felt safe and happy around Zhan gege.

His emotionless golden eyes and his silence somehow comforted me.

It felt as if he was saying to me that I wasn’t a curse, someone unwanted or unaccepted as everyone says.

Zhan gege wasn’t only my saviour, he was my everything.

While everyone hated me, his serene, mysteriously aloof presence was the only warmth that encouraged me to keep looking forward to a new day…

But...it was all a lie, Ayuan gege. Just a mere figment of my imagination. All... everything that I felt, was all, nothing.

Zhan gege’s cold words, the way his golden eyes glared at me with anger when he revealed the truth… He was sacrificing his life, his happiness only to stop me and my misfortunes from harming others' lives.