History3: Make Our Days Count (Miracle)

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Xiang Yong Ching fidgets where she stands, fingers curling under the hem of her floral blouse. With worried eyes, she watches her older brother— who looks and acts nothing like how she remembers him— pack his stuff for his hiking trip to the Himalayas. She hates these moments when he has to chase after the ghost of Xi Gu-Ge, always trying to lessen the distance between him and his Xiao Xing up in the sky. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with him and it didn't change after his death.

It still breaks her heart to think of that first year after the accident, how inconsolable her brother had been, how he nearly killed himself from the grief. It's a constant source of heartache and worry for their family whenever he leaves for these hiking trips because there was always that possibility of him not coming back. 

It hangs over their heads, that devastating thought, too afraid to give it voice in the off chance that Hao Ting might be reminded that taking his life is still a way out to finally be reunited with the heart he lost. 

It's a blessing and a curse when he found purpose in becoming everything Yu Xi Gu wanted to be. A blessing as it gave him reprieve from his sorrows, and a curse as he gave up on everything that made him Xiang Hao Ting, save for being the same highschool kid who never stopped loving the same boy. He's lost all sense of self, solely remodeled to serve as an instrument for Yu Xi Gu's dreams to become reality.

His eyes that used to sparkle with mischief or glisten with love for family and his beautiful boy are nothing more than empty shells. The few times he allowed them to see the extent of his brokenness, too exhausted to keep up the stone-cold facade, Yong Ching couldn't decide which was more painful to watch. They didn't only lose Yu Xi Gu that day he was so cruelly taken away; they all lost her brother too. 

Yong Ching liked Phoebe enough. But she never made her brother smile. Couldn't even bother checking up to see how he was doing. Though she guessed Phoebe couldn't be blamed for the cold behavior. They were boyfriend and girlfriend only in name, a meeting Papa orchestrated with one of his friends. Gege probably only agreed to it because Papa kept breathing down his neck to move on and find a nice girl to settle with.

Xiang Hao Ting simply didn't have the will to argue.

Sun Bo Xiang called. Yong Ching had been thrilled when he told her of how Gege promised that he was no longer going to be stuck grieving and will try to live for the people he still had, to find himself again. Things that had assured Sun Bo too for but a moment because the next words that came out of Hao Ting's mouth and his tone indicated a kind of finality that had Sun Bo's— and her— heart racing.

'I feel that I am finally ready to see him' were his exact words. Sun Bo tried to act like the dead look in her brother's eyes and the slump in his shoulders didn't make alarm bells ring in his head. And now it was up to Yong Ching to try and convince him not to leave. The very thought brings fresh hot tears to her eyes, knowing full well that the second he walks out that door, she's never going to be able to see him again.

There's not a force in heaven or hell that can stop Xiang Hao Ting once he's got his mind made up on something. But she has to at least try. If not for her, their family, then to the loving memory of Yu Xi Gu. He will not want his Hao Ting to throw away his life like that.

Hao Ting hoists his traveling backpack over his shoulder and Yong Ching moves before she can think on it. He turns and she collides against him, thin arms coming up to wrap around his waist, wet cheeks smushed against his chest. 

"Ge." She chokes out the words, clings like she did that first week they mourned Yu Xi Gu together in the dark. "Please. He wouldn't want this."

She begs him not to leave, and he hugs her briefly before pulling away, dull brown eyes not really seeing as he lies straight to her face. He says he's fine. That he's going to come back. Everything's going to be okay now. And Yong Ching wept because at the end of it there was nothing she could do, just like the years before when the pain had still been so fresh for everyone.