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The interview is important. Breathe in.
The rent is due.
And making a good first impression is even more important. Breathe out.
Uncle Jiang hasn’t called since… Jiang Cheng’s number is still out of reach.
The Master’s degree, the gold medal, the sheer relief of coming out alive from the crunch called grad school is still incomprehensible to me. I am forever changed, a part of my soul lost in the fight for survival. Breathe in.
A-Ling has turned five; his one month present is still inside the closet.
Before I was so very sure about going straight in, conquering the fucking world, but the mountains of student loans and the lingering exhaustion from the coffee-fuelled nights are catching up to my already battered body. Breathe out.
Yan Li’s screams are still fresh in my nightmares.
Fuck! I need some time, some regrouping, some… peace.
Of course, I can’t just up and go into the mountains and overlook the need for dough and beacon, in fact, I am in desperate need of them.
The world is a street where without a shelter you only get bitten by dogs.
The job is… different, but not undesirable. In fact, I am quite excited about it. There are crowds of people around me, all of them falling under the book definition of corporate tools. Each adorned in crisp suits, with primary-colored folders, marble faces and, terrifyingly similar and shiver-inducing grins.
I am the flagrant black spot in the pristine establishment. Then again, am not here for a desk job, rather for a special job, I am to be interviewed for the position of live-in nanny for the twin boys of the elusive second Jade of Gusu.
Lan Wangji or the new and mysterious Co-CEO of the LANS, the business giant of the Gusu, and hopefully, my very own fiscal anchor in the violent seas of career uncertainties.
So here I am, in a black hoodie and almost stain free jeans, waiting for Mr. Lan’s call. I tried to do my own research on the enigmatic man, but damn! Apart from a few grainy and incomprehensible pictures, there isn’t much available on him. I expected to at least get something about Mr. Lan, but it is as if no one ever bothered to publish anything personal about him at all… which is ridiculous as there are 13.456 search results available about the esteemed first Jade of Gusu, Lan Xichen. With HD pictures of his admittedly attractive smile scattering around the several fan pages. Lan Xichen is famous amongst girls and guys.
“Mr. Wei? Please come in.” Calls a beautiful lady in white.
“Huh?” Smacking myself, I add, “ uh sure!”
“Good morning!” I greet with a bow and with as much grace as I could muster, which is sadly not much.
“Good afternoon.” Comes a steady, calm, and velvet-like voice.
Looking up I can’t even comprehend the sheer mortification of my greeting blunder, for the reason that there is a fucking lump in my throat; with ringing ears, parching mouth, and shockingly daze mind.
It is simply a miracle that I am not on my knees and crying out to heaven for the blessing that, the sight of Lan Wangji, was bestowed upon my undeserving self.
A delicately featured face, with unquestionable strength; a tall and broad stature, but with dripping benevolence… his whole body is like a conduit of light… so full of paradoxes but just beautiful… utterly beautiful.
I am arrested by the inquisitive gleam of golden irises that were needling my body, up to my bare soul. Those eyes are like the flakes of snow chilling but beautiful, I want to drown in them even if it means freezing to death.
The very same gaze is now a bit narrowed. Possibly because I am staring at him like a goddammed psycho, I also know that not breathing would end up with me on the floor or worst under some stethoscope bearing zombie but for the life of me, I can’t even move an inch of my body.
I am just struck dumb… quite literally.
The sight in front of me is in a word… peaceful.
I feel so content and awed, and a bunch of-of other intricate things that it leaves me utterly overwhelmed.
I want, if only once if only for a second, to bask in the magnificence of the creature in front of me.
“Wei Ying?”
It has been years since I have felt the warmth of someone caressing my name, of someone eliciting something out of my barren soul, of someone evoking the desire of living, of feeling.
I had promised to not fall again, but there was this tidal wave of something… something inside me the moment I saw the enigma ahead of me, I didn’t just saw him, I felt him, from each pore of my body, from the volatile core of my soul.
The sun is still up, the earth still alive, and god still floating above the skies. It is nothing new but my heart’s palpating beats are also telling the truth, the transforming truth.
And then just like that, something broke, I felt the entire world tilt. A shift, a very definitive shift, and a shift that was startling but not foreign. Just like all the pieces have finally fallen into their places, my foggy mind started getting clearer.
My eyes catch the colors, the hues, the fibers that were hidden from my consciousness till now; I hear the sweet bird chatters that were veiled by the chaos before, I feel the sneaky draft that is caressing my smoldering skin.
And then I caught it, that hint of something I have always craved, the whisper of the lullaby I had lost as young, the feeling of safety, some warmth of spring, the sweet-sweet smell of sandalwood, the smell of home.
And with that, I finally felt my consciousness bleeding out of my shattered walls. But the fall wasn’t scary; I was willing if the fall was for the man who has seized my soul.
“Heat.” Is the faint whisper I hear before I accept my fate before I give away my fractured heart for another gamble, at least this would be my last.