while we're at this i feel compelled to say that ever since i read ur post abt yqy dying of cancer/etc. and sj not knowing until he literally gets yqy's will handed to him (or smth... i may be misremembering) ive been rotating that in my head like a little gear spinning aggressively. jesus christ he really fucking would
(OG post!!) I am SO glad the thought has also made you feel insane, because the thought of yqy having a terminal illness and simply Not Telling Anyone has been PLAGUING ME for what feels like FOREVER!! And in a modern au, the burden of shame and secrecy is going to fall a little differently than it does in canon, but surely no less devastatingly!! I tend to think of modern yqy's xuan su+ling xi equivalent being him stealing a car before getting into a horrible accident, which would definitely cause him lifelong problems :( But for a parallel to him literally shortening his lifespan, I think he develops a degenerative or terminal condition in adulthood...? I did look into different cancers, as it was my obvious first thought, but a lot of them didn't seem thematically appropriate or resonant for what I was envisioning? (Is that awful to say? 😭) For example, lung cancer is commonly associated with "culpability" but doesn't seem quite right for yqy 💔
After some more research-- going off the heart attack scenario I posed in the same post-- I'm now very seriously considering yqy with congestive heart failure!!! Some kinds of it can be caused by heart attacks, and the condition often worsens over time and can be terminal. Specifically, left-sided heart failure causes the left ventricle to work harder than it should, and it frequently leads to right-sided heart failure along the line :( The cumulative effects feel really accurate to yqy.... I find the idea of yqy having heart problems romantic in the most tragic possible sense, and if they were caused from overwork and stress, I can totally see him covering up the problem and trying to ignore it without changing his lifestyle at all 😣
It's also important to me that both sj and yqy are canonically disabled, but sj's disabilities (and social/class disadvantages) are more visible than yqy's in any setting. The invisible disability aspect to yqy's storyline is HUGE for me, and, more importantly, for sj, who'll resent him for his seeming good fortune and ill-won prestige till the sun burns out. That's why yqy getting a terminal condition and then reaching the point where he can no longer hide it hits so good for me-- BOTH of them are forced to confront what yqy's facades mean for their relationship, and how them falling at the worst possible moment will affect the rest of their lives. I'm also more than a little insane about closure and the lack thereof in potential 79 fix-its, thanks ❤️
I know this is already so long, but while I'm on my soapbox-- I was recently looking into types of disabilities and chronic pain that canon yqy might have, and I ended up reading about dysesthesia (experiencing unpleasant and painful sensations without an an external cause) caused by central pain syndrome (a neurological condition which can be caused, among other reasons, by brain damage and chronic pain). Yqy having this is now canon to me. Ah, zhangmen-shixiong, your troubles are such fertile ground for medical whump! Thanks for being so tortured!!! (And thanks to everyone who stuck through this many paragraphs of my babbling for reading!!!)
