Wenzhou prompt: For some reason, WKX drinks the meng po soup again and forgets everything, even ZZS. Que desperate and worried ZZS trying to help a wary and sick WKX who is constantly throwing up blood because just seeing ZZS's face is enough to make his memories fight to come back. Just some good old hurt/comfort for these two.
This stain won’t wash out, is the absent thought that flickers to fore and it comes like a wisp in the dark of night.
All he can see is red; the red of dried blood on the pale of his clothes, red on Lao Wen’s lips, red in the corners of his eyes that glisten with unshed tears. The red tinged fingertips that smear through the spray on his cheek.
“He’s asleep.”
Ah Xiang takes a seat on the porch next to him, dipping her cloth into the basin of water, wringing it out before holding out to him. “Wipe your face before you go in. Maybe change out of that and give it to me. I’ll get the blood out.”
“Thanks.”
Ah Xiang’s gaze is soft and almost pitying. “You shouldn’t blame yourself,” She says with a thread of uncharacteristic heaviness in her voice. “It was his choice.”
Zishu squeezes the cloth in his hand, biting back the urge to lash out.
“It was a stupid choice.”
“And you’re the one who chose to love him.”
Her eyes are downcast when he turns to her. Between Lao Wen and himself, they have yet to name this unspoken thing between them, and yet here it was laid bare. He is one of the most important persons in his life and Zishu has yet to say what really needs to be said.
Regret coats his tongue. Regrets that he told himself he cannot begin to accumulate, weighs tightly in his chest.
“I do,” He says in an almost whisper. He wipes down his face, hiding it behind the cloth for far too long and by the time he hands it back to Ah Xiang, Zishu is sure it is equal parts blood and salt.
“The Mengpo Soup was the price to save you,” Ah Xiang says succinctly, gathering her skirts to leave. “He would say that he would do it all over again and that what he is going through now is worth it.”
“Is it?” Am I?
When he’d met up with Lao Wen again after his convalescence, he had rushed towards him, throwing his arms around him and uncaring that there were a street full of people watching, it had stung when he was pushed back gently and with a smile. “I’m sorry, but do we know each other?” Lao Wen asks with no trace of recognition.
And hadn’t it nearly destroyed him to know why.
Every time they come close to a remembrance, every single moment they brush up against even a semblance of the connection they once had, it causes Lao Wen immeasurable amounts of pain.
The guilt of being the reason why and of not having the strength to walk away, eats at Zishu constantly. Would it better to just let this intertwined fate of theirs to unravel?
As if sensing his thoughts, the slap delivered to the back of his head jars him out of it.
Gu Xiang draws on every ounce of haughtiness that she learnt at her Master’s knee. “How dare you ask if it is or isn’t worth it? You’re here, aren’t you?”
