“Senior, I’m in love with you!”
Xuyun watched the boy without blinking. “What do you like about me?” once again, he asked.
The boy was startled, he lifted his head and met Xuyun’s eyes. Slowly, he hesitantly answered, “ you… there’s so much to like about you, senior… Where should I start from?” He then covered his embarrassed face in panic.
Xuyun smiled. He actually liked seeing his embarrassed face so much.
After he got a bit of courage, Sui took down his hands. “Actually… maybe because you’re so different from me.. You’re like an ideal protagonist that I wished to be. Ahh, sorry, it’s so embarrassing.”
Xuyun walked toward him. His answer was different from before. Ah, that was right. He didn’t remember yesterday’s event. On this day, they were just met, been confessed to for the first time. They never talked about the future’s truth, they never quarreled, this Sui didn’t know that Xuyun had seen his death four times.
“So, I’m just your idol?”
“Eh?” Sui thought he heard wrong.
“What do you plan after confessing to me?”
“Ah, that’s….” Sui’s face turned red, his head down. “I planned to just confess to you, senior! I’m not thinking of dating you a slightest bit! You can rest assured!”
“Oh? But we have dated once.”
Sui looked at him, puzzled. Was his beloved senior got possessed??
Xuyun slowly touched his wrist and circled his arms into Sui’s back, embracing him.
“We have gone into this step,” he said into Sui’s ear.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A familiar body shape, a familiar warmth, a familiar heartbeat. This guy was alive.
“Sui Shizi, I’ve known you before. You confessed to me four times. How dare you confess when you’re about to die? You think I will let you?” His hands tightening on Sui’s back.
“S-Senior… How do you know…? How do you know about my future? This…” he stuttered. “You came from the future?”
Xuyun released him, then he looked at him straight in his eyes. “I’ve always had two abilities. I hide the other one because it’s too troublesome.”
“Ah..” Sui looked at him, stunned. He was too shocked that his face was turning pale. “So I’ve died three times, huh? But… I got to date you, senior! Is this a dream?”
His smiles widen, he looked at Xuyun happily. He wanted to ask, you like me, senior?, but then he halted.
Xuyun couldn’t figure out the meaning of the expressions Sui showed. Just now, he smiled happily but now he fell silent while looking at him. He looked at Xuyun for quite awhile, before turning his face to other direction. “So, that’s why…” he muttered.
“Senior, you turned back the time four times already,” Sui grabbed Xuyun’s arm. “Do you plan on turning back again after I die this time?”
Xuyun didn’t say anything.
Sui’s face got restless. “Senior, you can’t do that again. You’re disrupting the future. That’s why I can’t see the future today. You’re making them go around in circles.”
Xuyun’s eyes grew widen. But he wasn’t surprised. He didn’t give a damn about what the future would turn out. He grabbed Sui’s hand. “Don’t worry about that. I’m here before you now, in this moment. Don’t think about anything else.”
His eyes looked so soft when he was looking at Sui. Sui never seen his eyes looked like that before. It made him felt so touched. He laid his head on Xuyun’s shoulder. “How can I not worry about that? Senior, your ability is a rare one, it takes too much toll on your body. Don’t overexert yourself.”
Xuyun fell silent. It wasn’t like he didn’t know the risks of his ability, but again, he didn’t give a damn about that.
“I wouldn’t. This is the last time.“ He lied. He would still repeat, repeat, repeat the August 20 after Sui died, no matter how many years the ability would take away from his life.
Just after he said that, smile could be seen on Sui’s face. “Let’s make this day memorable, senior,” he said.
Sui asked what did he do after confessing to Xuyun before, and how did he die previously. Xuyun told him everything. Hearing that he had skipped class, went to the arcade and even fought on the colosseum arena, he couldn’t help but grinned foolishly. When Xuyun asked him whether if he wanted to go there again, Sui shook his head.
“You might not know this, senior, but I’m a weird person. I got tired easily of habits. When I like or hate something, it wouldn’t be long. Yesterday, I might like visit arcade and colosseum, but today, I prefer going to planetarium and movies instead!”
So he’s a moody guy, huh? That would explain why he seemed full-spirited when facing the arcade’s gang, but then he slouched like a wimp in colosseum’s arena.
They jumped off the school wall and walked to the planetarium while wearing hoodies, covering their identities as student. When they arrived there, three striking yellow-colored school busses could be seen at the parking lot, and a lot, lot of children were waiting outside the ticket counter.
It was a grade school field trip.
Feeling dejavu, Xuyun, who hated crowded place, urged Sui to leave and went into another place, but this time, Sui was persistent.
After waiting for half an hour, they finally got their tickets and then went inside, along with crowds of grade schoolers. Xuyun held Sui’s hand all the time, to avoid getting separated.
The planetarium had a magnificent interior design. Inside, they felt like they were nowhere on earth. A lot of star-like lights shone from everywhere, yet it was not too bright. The hallway were all black glass, reflecting the starlight like the outer space. It was wonderful.
Sui acted like the grade schoolers around. His eyes were like the hallway, reflecting all the light like it were the outer space itself. He listened carefully of the guide’s explanation. Sometimes, he touched the constellation screen and followed the line with his fingers. He jumped around, but still holding on Xuyun’s hand tight.
He likes this place that much?, Xuyun thought. What was special about this place? Except if he didn’t go to grade school, every school had planetarium as their permanent list of field trip destination. In other words, every children surely had went here at least once.
They entered a big hall with high, round ceilings, like a dome. After all the visitors had been seated, the lights turned off. It was dark for awhile, before another lights flashed, making all the visitors mesmerized.
Above them, the round dome ceilings turned into a galaxy, a wide galaxy with numerous stars. It felt like they really had been thrown into a rocket, then were blasted into the space. They were so close to the so-called moon and mars, they were basically in space now.
Xuyun could feel Sui’s grip tightening on his hand.
“I’m so glad that I can’t look into the future now, senior,” he said, while still staring at the galaxy.
Xuyun couldn’t see his expression clearly from the side. He remained silent while thinking carefully what did Sui mean. He glanced into the direction Sui looked at. It was still the same galaxy. Dark blue space, filled with million of stars. Like the night sky.
Suddenly, he understood the reason why Sui wanted to go there. It was because he couldn’t watch the night sky with Xuyun. They could never watch the same star together, because the stars hadn’t come out yet at 6 PM.
Yet here, they could defy the truth. They were now had passed 6 PM. It was night time now, it was alright now. They finally could live in this moment, not knowing what the future would bring.
Xuyun slowly released his grip, then gently intertwined each of his fingers with Sui’s, filled all the gap between Sui’s fingers. It was warm, it was too comfortable, if only he could freeze this time.
Sui could felt something touched his cheek and turned his face to the side. It was his senior. It was dark, but he could find Xuyun’s eyes, that got close and closer to his face. He felt his lip touched something as tender, for a short while, then parted. Xuyun watched Sui’s reaction, feeling rude. Sui was not feeling wronged at all, instead, he wanted to do it again, longer. He was about to peck Xuyun’s lips again, before his ears started ringing so noisily. He heard screams. Then pain all over his body. The starlights disappeared.
What people in the dome witnessed was, that suddenly, a big thing from above the ceiling crashed down into visitor’s seat. The force was too great that it caused the seats to broke. People started to scream because they just found out that the planetarium’s lamp had fell into a person.
The huge lamp fell onto Sui, the glass pieces shattered everywhere, piercing his body, including his eyes. But none of them touched Xuyun, who just sat inches away from him. Xuyun lifted Sui’s head, still shocked, he couldn’t grasp what had happened. No, this should not have happened yet. It was too early! Did his time got reduced??
Xuyun got panic, but, sensing that Sui still had a pulse, he calmed down a bit. Sui hadn’t die yet, but his body was covered in blood. His breathes unsteady. Xuyun quickly spoke to him, “Sui, can you hear me? You’ll be alright. I’ll hold you.”
He hold Sui’s trembling hand. Not long after, Sui grabbed his hand back.
“Se-Senior,” he said in a low voice.
“Yes,” Xuyun quickly answered.
“I’m sorry… to have gotten you involved in this…”
Before Xuyun could respond, a crowd of people in medical cloak, surrounded them. They wiped blood on Sui’s body, put a gas mask on him, then brought him into the ambulance car. Xuyun immediately followed them to the hospital. At the hospital, they put Sui into Emergency Care Unit and immediately performed an operation on him.
Xuyun waited them outside of the operation room, a lot of emotions mixed in his heart like crazy. He thought about one cruel scenario.
They could never save him, could they?
They would try their best to save Sui, to operate on him, kept his heart warm and stimulate it to keep beating, but Sui would still die on 6 PM. He would still pass away in the designated time. ‘Gods’ only moved forward the time of the accident.
Xuyun had already hated ‘Gods’ and ‘Death’, but this time, he loathe them so much his entire body crawled with hate. What was ‘their’ intention? ‘They’ wanted to watch the weak humans trying to force a dying man’s body to function again, ‘they’ wanted to watch Sui suffered longer from pain before he finally leaves the damaged body. ‘They’ wanted to teach Xuyun a lesson, to warn him not to challenge them again.
A string of words appeared in Xuyun’s memory again, ‘I’m sorry to have gotten you involved.’
Xuyun hated ‘Gods’ and ‘Death’, but what he abhor most was himself. Sui was being tortured on his death bed, but what was he doing here??
Xuyun got out of the emergency ward, out of the hospital, he ran and ran until he arrived at the practice field.
He took out Shinenema, looked at it for quite awhile, before lifted it, slashed it into his own neck. The sword cut deep wound on his neck. Blood splurted from that wound, it flowed so much the floor was turning red.
Xuyun fell into the floor from extreme dizziness. His lips and fingernails turned blue, his face pale. Not long after, he could feel his consciousness faded.
How comfy. He wanted to do this long ago.
If this really worked, he thought, he would go look for Sui immediately, then ran away, somewhere ‘Gods’ or ‘Death’ couldn’t touch.
But, he woke up instead, at the same place where he slit his neck.
There was wound on his neck, but it didn’t feel as painful as before. There was no blood flowing anymore. Xuyun punched the floor in anger. His body had been trained since he was a kid, had experienced a lot of injuries that his cell regeneration speed could even handle a severed carotid artery.
A scream of anger yet sadness could be heard echoing in every corner of the practise field. What was the point of being the strongest? He could only protect himself!
He couldn’t protect Sui, yet he couldn’t die with him either. Even if he jumped off a building or took out his heart by force, he wouldn’t die. Why? Because it was not his time of death, because ‘Gods’ would do any means to keep him alive.
To prevent him to die in the same time as Sui.
Alright. He’d give up. He would not interfere again. He would be a normal obedient human who would do normal activities until his time ran out. Once he had fulfil all of Sui’s wishes, once he had accompany him to all places he wanted to visit.
And so, Xuyun repeated that day over and over again, they introduced themselves over and over again, went to different places each time, and parted in different deaths each times. But, Xuyun never told Sui the truth anymore; he kept it to himself, so Sui would enjoy his last day fully without worrying about him or the future.
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