Pinky Promise ~ Dislyte ~ Tang Xuan x Yuuhime

Chapter 13: Ice Scream

It had been a week. A week since Yuuhime contacted Xuan. And he felt horrible.

He could hear Raven's "No, we need you in today," in his ears. She was still trying to figure out why he had been gone that day, and he completely understood why, but he just wished she along with everyone else would drop it. He wasn't about to say, "Oh, don't worry! It's just that a criminal mastermind threatened me! No worries at all!"

He loved helping out, don't get him wrong, it's just...

He could imagine Yuuhime's disappointed face every time he had to say he couldn't get a date for their ice cream hang out, and every time, he felt like ripping his heart out. He wanted to run to her and cradle her face in his hands, and apologize until her sadness was healed.

Today was especially eating him away. This exact time, exactly a week earlier, was when she first called him and asked him to go. He could hardly focus on training and kept missing the training dummy. He groaned and slumped down on a bench after 30 minutes, running his sweaty hands through his hair. He was glad he was alone today, because he really didn't want to explain to his friends why he was upset.

Even worse, tomorrow was the two year mark of when his brother left him. Overall, a crappy week already, and it was only Monday.

He heard the door to the training room open. Peeking over, he saw Gaius.

"Hello, Gaius." Xuan said, quickly standing up.

"Hello, Tang Xuan," Gaius said, "No one here today?"

"Nope." Xuan said. "It's just me, I guess."

Gaius was silent for a moment before saying, "Are you feeling alright?"

Xuan was quiet before giving a half hearted laugh, "Meh. But what can I say? Almost two years."

Gaius didn't really find this amusing. Sternly folding his arms, he said, "There's no need to act like nothings wrong."

"Whaaat? I'm serious, it's...fine."

Xuan cracked his knuckles and gave a small chuckle.

"Fine. I'm just...fine."

Gaius simply examined Xuan. The young man had always been good at acting like he was perfectly fine with everything. He himself even had a hard time at first discerning what Xuan was actually fine with and what truly bothered him.

Though, they always say practice makes perfect. Besides, when it came to Xuan's brother, he could never fully hide his pain behind his mask. 

"I've talked with other administrators, and we've decided you can once again have tomorrow off."

"Wha-?"

"You worked hard this week with the increase of miramon attacks. Besides...we all can understand what you're feeling some way or another." This last sentence was more true than Gaius liked. He remembered the first years of losing his beloved Hannah; the pain that overtook his whole body, the hours of not being able to move from his spot on their bed, staring at hers, where her body would lay motionless, except for her eyes, which darted around his face. Even if Hannah died, and Yun still lived, the pain of losing someone you loved so much...it was eerily the same from person to person.

Xuan could hardly move. All he could say was, "Thank you sir!"

"Hm." The older man nodded.

This opportunity was the last thing Xuan expected. He was unimaginably grateful, and he couldn't wait to finish his training to tell Yuuhime the good news!

***

Yuuhime sat on the ground, staring at her phone and desperately hoping Xuan would send her a message saying "I finally have a date for us!"