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"Yuan-er, don't forget to start packing, okay?" Wei Wuxian called out to Sizhui as they carried the groceries in. Setting the bag down with an amused huff, Sizhui turned to face him, "Baba, I'm not leaving for at least another two weeks."
"Aiyah, I know, but it's always good to get a head start. Right, Lan Zhan?" His Father hummed in agreement as he began packing everything away, carefully setting aside the things for lunch.
"Decide what stays and what goes at least."
"Ah~ Great idea, Lan Zhan. Always so smart-" Sizhui took that and his Father's reddening ears as his queue to leave while he still could.
"Ok! I'll just go get started on that. Bye!" He left the kitchen as quickly as he could without running.
"Ah, Lan Zhan...they grow up so fast huh? Already off-" he missed the last of Baba's wistful statement as he rounded the corner to the stairway, but he'd heard it enough times in the last month to get the gist of it. He could hardly believe it himself, but as he sat among the physical manifestations of his childhood, it hit him. Within two and a half weeks he'd be gone and living in his college dorm. That thought simultaneously made packing easier and harder, because now he wanted to pack but he wanted to pack everything. Looking at the stack of folded boxes in the corner, he thought, ' Fuck it' and got to work.
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Two hours and a lunch break later, he'd finally sorted all the content of his closet and dresser into two separate piles. Now all he had to do was narrow down his 'keep-and-carry' pile. Great . With a weary groan and creaking stretch he stood up, groaning in relief when his lower back popped and made his way over to the boxes. Grabbing two for now, he brought them as well as a roll of tape and a pair of scissors, back to the two piles. He labelled one box as storage and another as carry, he planned to go through the 'storage' box later to check for anything that could be donated.
With another weary huff he sat down and began sorting the large piles into smaller, more precise ones. He felt many mixed emotions as more and more memories resurfaced with each item neatly sorted. It wasn't until he'd reached a pile of seemingly random, nonsensical memorabilia that he felt truly nostalgic. At the top of the pile was a card, outwardly it was nothing special, just a generic, dollar store greeting card, it's what was inside it that mattered. Opening the card, he found its contents were exactly as he remembered; a twig, a dry, faded flower and a smiley face bandage. Sizhui felt his mist over as he read the message in the card.
Scrawled in a barely eligible hand, that covered the inserted page front and back, it said, "Dear, A-Yuan (can I call you that? You can call me A-Ming!), I'm really, really sorry about your arm and head. I promise I didn't mean to push you, it was an accident, honest! It's all that stupid meanie's fault, but don't worry I pushed him back. I got in trouble for it, even though he started it, but it was worth it! Let's see him push us around now! I hope you feel better soon and come play again! I put my favorite, super get better bandage in here, a pretty flower (because you like them, I know I saw you) and my favorite stick, I woulda put my favorite pebble but Mama said it wouldn't stay properly. Come play soon, Your bestest friend, A-Ming."
Sizhui gently ran his finger over the items in the card as he remembered that day, the day he met his best friend.
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It had been only a few months after his adoption. He didn't remember much from that time, but he did remember Baba and Father taking him to the park on a really sunny day. They were going to have a picnic in a nice shady area and little Sizhui, then just called A-Yuan, had been super excited. Everything was bright and colorful and pretty, and next to the tree they were under there was a little patch of wildflowers that he'd been immediately enamored with. He spent the entire picnic chattering away about them -the no talking rule lifted just this once for him- and asking his dad's all about them.
After the picnic Baba tried to encourage him to go play on the playground not too far away but he'd been a little intimidated by all the activity around it. He'd never really played with children his age, at least, never so actively as the ones in the playground. Baba and Father had said he didn't have to if he really didn't want to, but that he might have fun and should try it at least. So A-Yuan plucked up as much courage as he could, grabbed both parents' hands for support and marched determinedly toward the playground.
It was even more wild and active up close, and A-Yuan almost asked his dads to turn right back around, when a boy barely a few inches taller than him ran up to them.
"Hi!" He chirped enthusiastically as waved at them. He was very loud and...bright. A-Yuan, who had hidden behind his Father's leg when the boy ran up to them, peeked around it and shyly waved at the boy. Father pet his head in comfort while Baba crouched down and cooed at the boy.
"Hi there! What's your name little guy?"
"I'm Jingyi, but everyone calls me A-Ming! Can he come play?" A-Yuan ducked back behind Father's leg when the boy -Jingyi- pointed at him. It's not that he didn't want to, he was just really worried. What if he didn't know the game, and messed up really badly and then Jingyi wouldn't want to play anymore?
"-ask him?" He caught the end of Baba's sentence as Father soothed his panicked thoughts by petting gently through his hair. Looking up, he saw that two more people had joined them, Jingyi's parents probably and almost hid again, but his dads calmed him down and gently introduced him to them. Afterwards Jingyi stepped up and asked him if he wanted to play with him. A-Yuan woefully told him that he didn't know a lot of games.
"That's ok." Jingyi replied, "We can just make up our own. It'll be fun!" Awed by his quick agreement, A-Yuan hummed and nodded to which Jingyi cheered, -loudly, so very loudly- grabbed his arm and ran off to a more open area; their parents trailing leisure behind them. Once there, he had A-Yuan help him find pebbles. He said that they needed a lot of different ones for the game, which was a modified version of hopscotch.
The grid looked like a large board game, and the pebbles were different points. It was a little disorganized but it was a lot of fun and over time A-Yuan found himself relaxing more and more with his new friend. After hopscotch they played more games, sometimes with the other children but always together. They played tag, drew in the sand and had to guess each other's drawing, they played on the swings and on the monkey bars and the play set.
They'd been playing on the slide when it happened. Some of the older children started bullying the smaller ones away from the play set and one of them came up behind A-Yuan and Jingyi as they were preparing to go down the slide. He tried to push past them to go first but Jingyi refused to let him pass.
"We were here first!" He huffed, his cheeks red with irritation. A-Yuan tried to calm him down, saying that 'it was okay because they'd gone down before', but Jingyi wasn't having it. He said, "It's not okay! If he wants to go so bad, then he can wait for us to go down. Then he and his friends can go, but we were here first! So he has to wait!" He'd known his friend only a few hours but already A-Yuan knew that that stubborn pout meant that Jingyi wouldn't be budging anytime soon. He still grabbed his arm and tried to get him to let it go, but the bully had apparently reached the end of his patience and tried to push Jingyi aside. Unfortunately, A-Yuan was right behind him, just at the edge of the slide. The push caused Jingyi to bump into him, sending the both of them tumbling down the slide. On the way down A-Yuan hit his head on the edge of the slide while trying to right himself. He and Jingyi eventually tumbled right off the slide into the rough carpet of the playground. The scare of the fall had shaken A-Yuan up so much that he hadn't even realized that he'd grazed his arm.
Disoriented and terrified he was relieved when his parents came running up to them, so much so that he simply burst into tears. He didn't remember much after that. He knew that one of them picked him up and that they went home, where Father quickly disinfected and bandaged his arm and put ointment on his head. He fell asleep not too long after that and honestly thought that that would be the last time he saw Jingyi. Who wanted a big crybaby for a friend? So he was pleasantly shocked the next day when Baba came into his playroom with a card and told him that it was from Jingyi, he was doubly pleased and surprised by its contents. Jingyi still wanted to be his friend and he couldn't have been more excited.
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Smiling, Sizhui gently placed the card into the 'keep-and-carry' box as he remembered everything that happened after. Their parents had apparently exchanged telephone numbers and little Sizhui was very excited to let his friend know just how much he loved the card. They talked every chance that they got and met up whenever they could. They'd been ecstatic when they found out they'd be going to the same school and it's been that way ever since.
Now, thirteen years later, they were off to college, together of course. Looking around his room Sizhui felt calmer at that fact. Even if they weren't roommates, they'd have each other's backs, just like always. With a smile and a huff he sealed the last of the boxes up and gently stored it away.
"Just in time for dinner." He groaned as he stretched and got up. He smiled to himself as he went down the stairs. No matter what it brought, he was ready to start the next chapter of his life.