Chapter Text
Packing up, for Zhengxi, isn’t so hard. Well, it’s difficult physically because he has a shit ton of books, but mentally, it’s not so hard. It’s not like he’s saying goodbye to things, and he’s not saying goodbye to this house. The door isn’t closing and disappearing when he leaves with his things to put in the van.
But he knows that’s different for Jian.
Since his return, or - since he got out of the ward, he’s been back in his house from middle school. From when he was a kid, even.
He accompanies Jian to pack his things, since he didn’t have his mother around or a sibling to help.
When he walks through the door, guilt strikes him. It’s as lonely as it’s always felt.
“I did a bit of tidying before you came, you shouldn’t find any messes.” Jian waved his hand, “Where do we start?”
“Mhh, the bedroom probably has the most belongings so we can get that stuff first.” Zhengxi says after some consideration, popping the boxes into shape.
The room is kind of cold, Zhengxi realises. He turns on the light to add some amber lighting.
“You know everything you’re taking right?”
“Pretty much, the little boxes on the shelves and stuff.” He lets out a ‘hup’ as he stands on his desk chair to bring them all down, peeking through some of them just to double check they’re the right ones.
Zhengxi stands next to the chair and takes the boxes as they come down, putting them in the cardboard in an efficient manner. They all seem to have paper in them, but he has no idea what’s on the paper if anything.
They make their way through the room, folding clothes to put away, and Jian laughs when XiXi finds his banana shirt.
They get it all done within an hour and a half, and Zhengxi just gets done putting away Jian’s bathroom essentials. He walks back into the hallway and finds the blonde standing, looking at that picture next to the couch; the one of him as a baby with his mother holding him up.
He has that look on his face, the one Zhengxi rarely sees.
Slowly, he walks over and takes the picture, startling Jian from his thoughts.
His face flushes and he grabs the other side of it, “Don’t look! It’s embarrassing!” He says, and Zhengxi flicks him on the head.
“How is it embarrassing?” He asks, placing the frame carefully inside the box. “You were a cute kid.” He leads on, making Jian pout.
The blonde sighs, “I think… I’m gonna take some of my moms stuff from her room too.”
Zhengxi makes a sympathetic face. “Okay, do you want to be alone?”
“Hm? I don’t mind.” Jian grins, walking away to the room. “I’ve never really been in here, to be fair.” He creaks the door open.
Zhengxi follows closely behind, and they both will surely get lung issues with the amount of dust that’s immediately visible.
Jian looks left and right, as if seeing if anyone’s there, before walking further in.
“Feels like an invasion of privacy somehow…” He murmurs, going to her closet. “I’m sure she won’t mind if we take some clothes.” He chuckles nervously. The implications.
Zhengxi takes two shirts and folds them, putting them away, then Jian on the other side of the room almost eats shit as he trips on something.
He looks down, rubbing his foot.
“You okay?”
“Yeah…” He answers, but his eyebrows furrow in confusion.
He crouches down and opens a box on the floor, then he seems to freeze up.
Zhengxi rounds the corner and crouches beside him, then his eyebrows jump up in surprise.
It’s a pile of photos, at the top, is a photo of Jian’s mother with his father.
Jian carefully moves the photo on top to look at the one under.
He knew what his father looked like by now, there were photos of him in that place, and he looked up the incident where he died, and saw his photo there too, but he’d never seen him, or his mother, like this. Hugging on the beach, as if nothing mattered. They were really in love.
His mothers face is fuller than he remembers ever seeing it, with the sun shining off it, in pretty clothes.
His covers the box back up with its lid and Zhengxi looks at him.
“Take it.” He encourages, dragging it out into the sun basking the room.
“Can I really?” She won’t come back to look at them?
Zhengxi nods and takes it to the moving box, and Jian sits on his knees, his cheek resting on the mattress.
He looks around his mothers room, and he realises, he didn’t really know her at all. And now she’s gone, god knows where she is. He just knows it’s not like when she left town, and she’d come back with groceries in her hand. That’s why he can take these things.
When he leaves, all the stuff left in the apartment will be sold.
He covers his face when he feels his eyes tear up and feels his bottom lip wobble. He’s partly glad they came in here, but he also hates it.
Zhengxi walks back to him and kneels down, clutching Jian’s shoulder.
“Sorry.” Jian mumbles, not meaning to make it sad.
“Don’t say sorry.” XiXi tells him, shuffling forward and embracing him.
Jian cries for a while, then shakily says, “I think I want to take a bit more of her stuff.”
So that’s what they do, Zhengxi puts the boxes onto the carriers and Jian looks back into the house. It’s so empty, but it always was. He thinks about all the times he walked through the apartment alone, the first times he went without babysitters, all the times he was sick.
It’s not like his memories will disappear of all his time living here, a lot of them will probably haunt him for the rest of his days, actually.
Zhengxi stands to his left, and squeezes Jian’s right shoulder. You won’t be alone anymore.
“You ready?”
“… Yeah.”
He shuts the door.