'' To be Liu Zhiyu was to be patient.
But he had been patient enough. ''
Can't change the weather, might not be forever
But if it's forever, it's even better
-BILLIE EILISH, BIRDS OF A FEATHER
He is okay with being unloved.
They refuse to accept...
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It took Joshua Hong an embarrassingly long time to muster up enough courage to knock on Liu Zhiyu's front door. He stood on the porch for at least five minutes before he raised his fist against the maroon surface, praying that the rest of the family hadn't been watching him hesitate like a coward from the multitude of uncovered windows.
Maybe that's why no one's answering—because they're all laughing their heads off at me!
Anxiously, he went to knock again, but before he could touch the door, it swung open with a surprising amount of force. "Woah, I didn't know you were capable of being so—wait a minute, you're not Zhiyu."
The person standing before him wasn't the sweet transfer student, but rather an unfamiliar twenty-something-year-old with intimidating muscles and blonde-streaked hair who looked more confused than he felt. If that was even possible. His head was reeling with confusion, fretting over the fact that he may have just trespassed on the wrong property.
"Yeah, no. I'm Hanhua, Zhiyu's older brother. What do you want with him?"
Older brother? Well, I guess we haven't really talked about our families yet. "We're spending the day at the arcade with some friends! I'm just here to pick him up since he doesn't know his way around town yet."
Hanhua looked skeptical, but a sudden thud from indoors prevented any further questioning. They both shifted to try and discern the source of the noise, earning themselves the sight of Zhiyu stumbling down the stairs with an air of indignation and disbelief shrouding him. Joshua was about to call out a greeting, but the frosty expression on the generally mild-mannered boy's face made his words catch in his throat.
Zhiyu spared him a fleeting glance before beginning a bout of bickering with Hanhua, the two of them exchanging furious exclamations in rapid-fire Chinese. Joshua watched awkwardly, completely lost in the conversation. All he could do was twiddle his thumbs and wait for them to realize he was still standing there.
I regret not taking Hao up on those Mandarin lessons. They'd sure come in handy right about now.
After an uncomfortable stretch of arguing, Zhiyu roughly pushed past his brother, stepping out of the house and pulling the door shut behind him with disturbing harshness. Then, in a sudden switch of demeanor, he faced Joshua with an apologetic expression, completely parallel to how he was behaving a couple moments ago. "I'm sorry about that. Hanhua's been unreasonably nosy lately. I hope he didn't cause you any trouble."
"Oh—no, I'm fine!" Zhiyu seemed relieved at that, but Joshua was far from a state of relaxation. He was off-put by the disagreement he'd witnessed, not because he found it disturbing but because he was genuinely a bit concerned for his friend's wellbeing.
Is it normal for siblings to hold that much animosity towards each other? That looked really aggressive; they were practically biting each other's heads off!
