zhoumi was a person who smiled a lot. joohyun loved that about him because she didn’t seem to smile a lot. he could see little things to smile about when she could only see things that would bother her. besides, his smile was beautiful. but joohyun always wondered what people that smile so much tried to hide behind their smiles. even though she tries to be reserved, joohyun is pretty much an open book. when she’s upset about anything, she makes sure that everyone knows. when she’s sad, she becomes grumpy, and everyone close enough to her can tell the difference from her usual grumpiness. when joohyun’s happy, you can clearly see it through her teasing, even if she puts a grumpy façade. so the blonde wonder how much had zhoumi already hidden behind his smile. she wonders how difficult it was to put a smile on his face even though the symptoms were taking over his body. she wonders how he must have suffered to pretend that everything was alright when he was getting skinnier by the day.
and that broke her heart. when his sob breaks the silence, her hands grasp at him with renewed strength. her breathing shakes, just as her fingers do softly. she caresses his soft hair and rubs his back, feeling her shoulder growing wet. “it’s gonna be okay” joohyun whispers near his ear. she wasn’t sure who she was trying to comfort with that. it should be zhoumi, but she felt so scared. the blonde didn’t lose much people on her life – not as important as the man was to her – so she didn’t know how it’ll be. though honestly, she didn’t want to discover. “you’re gonna be okay” she whispers again, eyes burning with tears she shouldn’t let fall. joohyun needed to be strong for both of them. she couldn’t break when she was holding zhoumi. “you’re not going through this alone”
Zhou Mi has always been the type of person to bottle up his feelings, and push whatever negative emotions he had down so they wouldn’t interfere with his daily routine. He was always the one to comfort others in their time of need, despite how he too was in need of comforting most of the time. He didn’t want to burden anyone with his problems, which was why, despite how painful it was, he kept a bright, radiant smile on his face. It wasn’t that he was lying to those around him—no, lying would be telling someone one thing, only to do another. He was simply withholding the truth, which to him, was completely different than lying. His problems were his problems alone, and none whom were close to him should have to deal with the vicious circle of emotions running through him.
However, today was different than all of those other days. Zhou Mi had tried ever so hard to keep a strong composure after his appointment, but with the newly found information—information that he had been suspicious about for a while, but was hoping he was wrong—he couldn’t bring himself to force that smile. He couldn’t bring himself to be strong when his world was seemingly crumbling around him. No, instead he let himself break, for the first time in forever, arms clutching at Joohyun for dear life. He was scared of letting her go, scared that if he did, he would lose her. That he would lose himself. So instead, he just stood there, as weak as he was, and despite how his knees wanted to give out under him, he forced himself to stay upright, arms wound around the small girl, and his face buried in her shoulder as he sobbed.
“I’m so scared.” He admits, and he isn’t sure which scares him most. The fact that he’s being completely honest with her, or the fact that he’s as sick as he is. “I can’t do this alone—not again.”
