What Happens In Rome.... [Lgbt] [✔]

Chapter 21

Any moment he wasn't with Wei, Yunlan spent it trying to understand, to learn more about a thing he had never had to confront before.

Whenever a coworker saw him on the phone, he laughed and played it cool, pretending he was messaging a friend or playing a game.

What he was actually doing was researching the internet for anything he could find on anxiety, behaviour disorders, depression, he read it all.

He had never known that pulling out one's hair was a real disorder, often triggered by anxiety that could include any kind of hairs on one's body. Yunlan knew Wei's eyes were alright, and it seemed his scalp was alright too, but that didn't mean he wasn't doing it anymore.

An article said that depression and anxiety could derive from low self-esteem, so he read about that too. Setting high goals for oneself but not being able to achieve it could create severe low self-esteem which entailed a high level of insecurity.

Yunlan absorbed every information he could find, discovering a world he never knew existed.

He desperately searched for ways to help him, but there wasn't much about that.

The internet provided many articles on what one should not do: do not say let it go, get over it, just stop, relax it's nothing, do not keep asking what are they sad about, what is it this time... lots of do not, but there were only two things to actually do.

He could either try to give him a boost of confidence or suggest Wei asked for professional help - which would be the right thing to do but if he knew him at all he could easily guess that it would not work right now. Wei would complain about the money or feel rejected as if Yunlan were implying that he was crazy.

Yunlan didn't think he was crazy, he had learned that it was something real that affected a lot of people. How come he had never known about it before?
Well, if Wei was any indication, it wasn't something you could notice at first glance. To anyone who didn't know him he looked totally calm, the turmoil was all inside.

Yunlan was left with only one thing he could do: trying to rebuild his confidence.

~~~

Neither of them had told Qiqi what had happened. Wei didn't and Yunlan thought it wasn't his place to talk about that, so he acted like nothing had happened.

Qiqi's week of trial had gone well and she had been hired. At the lowest salary of course, but she didn't seem to mind.
She was very passionate about her job, and now they saw her less frequently because she began working the nights too.

Yunlan kept going to Wei's apartment every night, to be together and to teach him Italian.

Wei looked radiant, and sometimes Yunlan almost believed he could be alright, but then something would come up that he didn't understand and he furrowed his brows, his hand moving automatically to his hair unless he felt looked at in which case he would keep his hands out of sight to hide the way they expressed how troubled he was. His face looked calm, focused, but his hands told a different story.

In those moments Yunlan pretended he didn't notice how his fingers twitched or his feet moved recklessly under the chair.
He wasn't a psychologist but all his readings told him that it was all about reassurance and confidence, and he could think only of a way.

Whenever that happened he hugged him suddenly, whispering "Ti amo (I love you)" against his ear. That was the first thing he had taught him, and always made him smile.

Qiqi and Wei would then study together in the morning, and Wei would teach her what Yunlan had taught him the night before - starting from the basic construction of the phrase.