a desert and an ocean, and people who loved it [Meng Yao/Lan XiChen/Nie MingJue]

water and wind

Meng Yao left the city the next day for the upcoming tour in different side of the country. His unspoken, childish desires were left in the hotel room, in the warmness of bed and refreshing feeling of wind. He knew that he probably won't meet them again and everything would stay in his head forever. But what-ifs existed, coincidences and something called fate also existed. Maybe he didn’t believe in fate and was skeptical about it, but if it wasn’t fate, how could he explain this magnetic feeling? How could he explain thinking about doing something with them even though they talked once and probably never again?

He got inside the tour bus and he leaned his head against the window, taking a breath. As they started driving and the landscapes began to change, Meng Yao could see various people doing things related to their daily lives. And in moments like that he wondered, what if he stayed in his father's company and lived a simple life? What if, for the only time in his life, he didn't disobey, what if he gave in to his father and let himself be pushed around endlessly? What if he didn't sue Jin GuangShan after the accident? What if he lost the trial? The life of an artist was both his greatest blessing and a curse. He valued privacy, but when you are a public figure you have to renounce it, as the name itself says.

Did Lan XiChen and Nie MingJue feel this way too? Did they like privacy and refused it, or maybe they had always wanted it and it didn't bother them? What did their relationship look like from a side that no one knew? Did they watch movies and cook together? Did they sing at home? Was music always and everywhere present with them, or did they take on the role of artists during concerts? Did they have nicknames for each other? Or maybe they had a pet? Why did they talk to Meng Yao? Out of pure curiosity and kindness or because they had some purpose in it?

Why was he even thinking about it?

Meng Yao put his hand on his forehead and closed his eyes, trying to silence all the thoughts running through his mind. Because they weren’t walking, they were running. Only now did he begin to feel how tired he was after the previous day and night, because earlier considerations had pushed it aside. Maybe he will be able to fall asleep now, he always falls asleep faster in the buses.

一
Meng Yao jolted awake with a start, his heart racing and his body drenched in sweat. He blinked away the remnants of his nightmare, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he struggled to shake off the lingering sense of dread that clung to him like a shroud.

He dreamed about falling. About the situation because of which his back would never be the back of a healthy person again. He dreamed about a father who should never have become one. Meng Yao thought that Jin GuangShan was the father by complete accident, it was as if he had inherited his son and didn't know what to do with him. As if Meng Yao was a machine and not a human being. Yes, his father saw him as anything but human. Everything but the son. So he pushed him down the stairs and almost made him an disabled person.

So Meng Yao sued him. And he won. And then he never spoke a word to him again, he never saw him again.

He tried to push himself upright, but a sharp pain shot through his back, radiating outwards in waves of agony that left him gasping for air. He sighed, knowing this situation too well. His back didn’t bother him as much as they did in the past, but sometimes they were absolute pain in the ass.

Grimacing, he gingerly rubbed his aching back, his fingers tracing the faint outlines of old bruises and scars that marred his skin like a roadmap of pain and suffering. Tears welled up in his eyes, but he definitely won’t cry just because of back pain, even though people usually didn’t care at all, so probably no one would notice.

Now he's used to it and his body has let go of it a bit, but it’s not always like that. Sometimes, after a long concert or in the winter, he could barely stand. He was a self-sufficient person and he valued it very much, and the fact that sometimes when things were really bad he couldn't take care of himself was very upsetting.