Cutting The Chase (BJYX) - Completed

26: Miss Me

Author's note:

⚠️Important poll + ❗Spoiler: There would be a 180 degree twist in the story, but I want you to vote which career would Yibo be in, looking down 3 years time (in this story)
A. Businessman
B. Motorcycle Racer
C. Actor/Dancer/Model

Okay! Let's go!

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The words "Miss me." ringed in Yibo's ears as Zhan's fleeting figure flashed in his eyes. The way his lips brushed Yibo's earlobes was chilly and the feeling it had left made an enormous weight on Yibo's chest which won't shift until he sees his bunny smile once again.

A gentle hand stroked Yibo's back in sympathy, and there beside him stood Madame Jiang with a half-sad, half-satisfied kind smile on her face.

She gazed back at the car carrying Zhan away, relating, "Zhan's mom and your mom were best friends." A new discovery Yibo did not knew before.

Yibo stared in the distance, retrieving his scattered childhood memories. He'd found in them the vague warm smiles of two beautiful ladies and their soft laughters filling the air, making Yibo feel safe and comfortable when he was young.

Those gentle voices soothing him to sleep, were nonetheless from his lovely mother and the beautiful woman resembling Zhan, who he recognized now as Madame Wei.

Realizations came crushing him and in the midst of his uncertainties, Madame Jiang confirmed a certain truth from the past. "They were close, like they were real sisters."

Revering, she added with a repressed laugh, "Too close I may say, that when your mother got pregnant the second time, they've planned to marry the Lan's second unborn child to my grandson, who is Zhan. They didn't knew then that the second born would be a boy as well."

She looked at Yibo, her soft palm caressing Yibo's cheek, remembering that gleeful day of that boy's birth. "That baby was so beautiful. When Zhan saw him when he was four, his stammering speech declared he wants to marry that infant." She let out a chuckle, reminiscing, "Zhan was young. He was innocent. But he had fallen for that boy at first sight."

Old Sangren's deep eyes stared at Yibo's light ones, admitting, "That baby was you, Yibo. Zhan had cared for you from the day you were born, always thinking of you. How many times in a day would he adoringly say how cute you are. Missing you when you're out of his sight. How he would plead to keep you with him at all times."

These previously unknown facts to Yibo made his ears flush red. And hearing it coming from Zhan's grandmother was a bit too embarassing for him, he muttered 'Shameless' in his mind thinking of the brazen man who's the root cause of this awkwardness.

Madame Jiang enjoyed Yibo's discomfort, proud of her grandson's effect on the known stoic-faced youngster.

But she has to broke a sigh after a while, continuing with her account of past events. Her happy thoughts turned into its opposite waveform as her greying eyes tried to shroud the sadness lurking inside her chest. "But happy days ended." She narrated how her daughter died with her husband in a tragic traffic accident when Zhan was eight and Yibo was four. "My young boy was devastated. He wasn't good with coping with the stress and shock. So we had to take him away from all the things which will remind him of his parents. This house, this town, your family, sadly, including you."

Yibo then remembered the day he waited for his Zhan-ge to come play with him. The changing hues of that bright day turning into an eerie darkness, but that one person he had waited longingly, did not show up.