Facets of Fate

Chapter 8: Playground

Zhuo Cheng is a year younger than Wang Yibo and Xiao Zhan. He was an orphan, and had to change different homes few times a year. In this process, somehow he met Yu Bin.

Yu Bin is a good friend, and he was one of the few people who genuinely cares about him. Zhuo Cheng is really thankful that he has a friend like him, but he can never tell him his problems because he doesn't want to cling to the other like he did to his previous families who abandoned him at the end.

So the years passed by eventfully, with nothing changing as the cycle of being hopeful and being abandoned continued. He already lost hope until he turned fourteen.

'Hey, why do you always wear that fake smile?'

He met Xiao Zhan.

At first, he was wary of him. The older man was too observant for his own good. The first week they had known each other, Xiao Zhan immediately noticed that he was wearing a fake smile all the time.

He was scared.

But Xiao Zhan only smiled and told him not to force it in his presence. His smile was so frighteningly bright and there was just something with the way his eyes crinkled into two crescent moons, how the mole below his lower lip become more visible and how he emitted a sense of comfort that  it sparked the hope that already died down inside Zhuo Cheng. He wanted to be close to this older teen and that's what he just did.

He told him everything.

It lifted the heavy load off of his chest, and he was happy that someone noticed the mask he had worn all this time.

Xiao Zhan's existence is a blessing for him.

Two years after meeting him, Zhuo Cheng already got a good family, and they didn't abandon him like the others did.

And he knew, he wouldn't be able to go this far if it wasn't for Xiao Zhan's smile that time.
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He's crying again.

Zhuo Cheng sees him crying inside the classroom, suppressing sobs while uncontrollable tears are streaming down his face. He wiped them, but they were endless.

Oh.

That's right.

Xiao Zhan loves another person, doesn't he? This is the first time he had seen the other look so broken. No, that expression doesn't suit him. He was meant to always smile, to always laugh, to always be happy.

That tired gaze, those crystal tears, they weren't meant for Xiao Zhan.

Because Xiao Zhan is the most beautiful when he is smiling.

And Yibo took that away.

It sparked anger inside him.

'If it were me, I wouldn't let you make that face...'

Why?

'If it were me...I...'

If only...

'...but it's not me.'

»»————-　♡　————-««

When Xiao Zhan was sixteen, he nearly confessed to Yibo.

That's right.

It was a month after Yibo lost his father, and he had not been himself. Xiao Zhan had always caught him staring at nothing, and when he asks him what was wrong, he would only shake his head and tell him that he's fine. While saying this, he had a look that is more expressive than his words.