Paint His Love

Chapter 3: Art Teacher

Zhan would never expect that the day will come, where he'll meet his first love again. He always imagine how Yibo will smile at him and maybe hug him, for he was an old acquaintance but it was the opposite. The man in front of him, of them, Hannah and him, is still Wang Yibo but feels different. His gaze was dull and cold, not the one he had before. The one full of life and happiness.

His hair was cascading like a curtain on his shoulders. But he had dark circles underneath his eyes. He looks pale. If Zhan believes that vampires exist? Yibo will pass the descriptions. The fact that Yibo became this way? It aches Zhan's heart. He decided to leave for he needed to heal himself. The man whom he loves the most, married someone else, a woman. How could he fight back, when from the very start he is already intended to lose?

Zhan doesn't want to be an ass and ruin Yibo's happiness. He chose to run away, away from his love, in order to protect himself, his heart. For the reason that if he will stay? He'll only torture himself. Tormenting himself for the reason that Yibo will never love him, the way he loves Elizabeth. How can he fight for his love? When Elizabeth already had Yibo's heart to start with? He cannot.

But now, he sees Yibo like this. His love became an empty shell. Yibo is still alive but that's it. The life from his eyes were long gone. It vanished at the same time when Elizabeth was taken away from them, from this lifetime.

"He's your Dad?"

Zhan's lips were quivering as he asked Hannah that question. The little girl nods her head. Zhan diverted his gaze again to Yibo who was still looking at him coldly. Zhan turned his fists into balls, clenching them, squeezing them close.  He chose to run away, for the reason that he thought, that Yibo will continue to shine and will feel a continuous amount of happiness. But now? Yibo looks like a living corpse and he cannot accept it. He refuses to admit it.

He doesn't know what happened, for the last seven year, regarding wih what happened to his first love. Now he meet Yibo again, looking so lost and empty.

Yibo is merely living. He became a shell of a man that Zhan used to know. He changed.

"Yibo"

Yibo flinched when he heard this stranger with his daughter called his name. His voice was gentle and his expression, warm.

The man is staring at him with gentleness flickering on his eyes. He was reminded how Elizabeth used to look at him.  So he gritted his teeth and look at that man coldly. But he was taken aback when the man smiled at him, gently.

It warms his heart a bit. So he looks away.

Rage.

He should feel it, right now. This man doesn't have the right to look at him like that. He's looking at him tenderly. A gaze full of gentleness and longing? Yes, he saw that. The man looks at him as if he's yearning. But yearning for what? He doesn't know who's this guy. He didn't even met him in the past. But why the hell did he had to look at him like that?

Zhan wanted to hug Yibo, embrace him, console him, comforted him. But he cannot. He doesn't have the rights to do so. Yibo wasn't his person, neither do him. It was just an unrequited love. But Zhan still longs for him. Yibo is in front of him but he cannot touch him.

'Wheelchair?'- Zhan dumbfounded, asked himself.

But then realization hits him like he was struck by a lightning. His love, his Yibo is confined in that wheelchair, unable to walk, to use his legs once more.

Pain. Pain. Pain.

That's what he feels. He run away with a hope that without him, Yibo will have a happy life. But what he's seeing right now, contradicting his prayers. Yibo became miserable.