"wheres cheng xiaoshi" hes the croissant (insp)

seen from Netherlands

seen from Australia

seen from China

seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from South Korea
seen from New Zealand

seen from South Korea
seen from Türkiye

seen from United States
seen from Spain

seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Germany

seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Italy
"wheres cheng xiaoshi" hes the croissant (insp)
lu guang shiguangdailiren is like What if the world was cruel and cold and unfeeling but you met a person who was kind and warm and so fucking emotional and he inspired you to look at that cold world differently and see hope where none was visible before. and then he died, because the world is cruel and cold and unfeeling. and it doesnt deserve him, you think, he doesnt deserve to die because his vision of the world was wrong and yours was right, if this is truly how this world works then it doesnt deserve him. and if you sacrifice all of it for his life then that would be a worthy trade. he has changed you and maybe it is not for the better but you will turn back time so he has the chance to do it again. and again and again and again and again
by god i hope its an endless loop i hope every time lu guang tries to decide that enough is enough that he cant stop himself from going to that basketball court one more time and looking into cheng xiaoshis eyes and seeing all the warmth of the sun in them. and then playing that match
do you think they noticed a change, the first few loops. i think they did. because how could they not, cheng xiaoshi and qiao ling, the two closest friends lu guang has, seeing him walk out of the room through a camera shutter and re-enter changed. diminished, faded, sad, the worn and cracking face of an old photograph. more and more tired each time he dives, further and further back with each attempt. every time a failure. and even as he lets the tides of time weather him more - render him a ghost, it feels like sometimes - even as lu guang changes more and more from the person he used to be, so too does that moment of disconnect in his friends’ eyes shorten and fade. because they don’t know him anymore. the golden stretch of time he spends by their sides before it all goes wrong is sliced thinner and thinner with every photo he uses, his touch blurring the memory with blood. each time he fails they know him less - the first him, the one unburdened by the terrible knowledge he now holds and the weight of too many failures.
soon they will never have known him at all.
Because you would notice if your best friend time travelled from a horrible future, but not if he travelled back so far he erased the person he once was (the person you knew) (the person you loved, first. before you loved this newer-older transparent version, never knowing a difference.)
(and this too is a loss to be grieved, he thinks sometimes in the dead of night to the sound of soft breathing in the bunk below, selfishly. but it is worth it if cheng xiaoshi lives.)
(the death of everything lu guang ever was is worth it if it means cheng xiaoshi lives.)
ive cooked ive got it i know what it is. the secret sauce is insane reckless rewriting of time and space motivated by love for a single ordinary person whos been lonely all their life. do you see the vision. all of this time travel universe hopping stuff on such a grand scale and its for the simple reason of trying to make this one person believe that they are loved and they are worth something. because they are
HE LOST HIS GENDER IN THE TIME LOOPPPPP
actually why must we unequivocally kin assign good/bad person is it not enough to think about “this painfully human character is given god time powers and makes a fucked up and selfish decision with them out of love and grief because they are so human now its time to see what the consequences are.” is this not enough. by god we have not even seen how the existence of the uk has tumbleweeded the timeline yet we literally do not know enough about the situation