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Lan Xichen had sworn it wouldn’t go any farther. That he was first and foremost HIS lover. Not Nie Mingjue’s. That Lan Xichen’s and Nie Mingjue’s relationship wasn’t serious and it wouldn’t affect them in any way.
Yet, as he stood in the entryway of Xichen’s favorite restaurant, waiting to make a reservation to surprise his lover with later, he saw them. Saw Nie Mingjue holding Lan Xichen’s hand over the table. Saw the way their hands intertwined and how the matching rings on their fingers glittered together under the soft glow of the restaurant lighting.
And Jin Guangyao understood.
He thinks maybe it would’ve been better if he’d called to make the reservation, instead of impulsively stopping by as he passed in front of the restaurant. It would’ve spared him the hurt. Spared him from having that image carved in his retinas forever. His lover holding someone else’s hand with affection that was supposed to be only for him.
But he knew that not seeing it now was only delaying the inevitable.
It wasn’t like he could go back in time and change his decision anyways.
So Jin Guangyao left quietly. He turned around and walked straight back to his car. Driving it away, away and away. Trying to think of anything but the affection he saw between the two men. Trying to think of anything but the softness of their touch. The softness in their eyes. The slight smile on their faces as they looked at each other.
But they haunted him and followed him no matter how far he drove.
Jin Guangyao drove back home. Back to the house he shared with Lan Xichen. It wouldn’t be home much longer.
He packed his few belongings, settled them in his car and took one last look around, taking in the small details he would come to miss.
Lan Xichen’s fancy soap bar, his writing tools laying in an orderly fashion on the table, the guqin in the living room, even the nearly empty rack of spices.
He still loved him. Despite the betrayal. Despite knowing he couldn’t stay, couldn’t continue and pretend nothing had happened, he still loved him.
He longed for the ignorance he’d had the previous day. When he thought that maybe at last he could give forever a try. He could settle and truly trust someone.
He didn’t believe in forever anymore. Didn’t think anyone ever truly sticked around until you became old and crippled and eventually rotted.
No. People in Jin Guangyao’s life never stuck around. Sometimes it was the other people’s fault and sometimes it was his own. Yet he truly thought it would be different this time. He really thought that Lan Xichen would be with him until he was gray and wittering.
It was disappointing. To once again be alone after having someone for so long. To once again know that no one is waiting when you come home from work, that no one is there to greet you, that no one will ask you how your day was or worry about you if you’re late.
It was sad. Leaving it all behind. Closing the door on this life he could have led. Closing that chapter of his life.
But he knew he had no other choice.
The only way he could go was forward. He had no time for moping around and wondering how things could have been different.
They weren’t different. Things are as they are and Jin Guangyao knows it.
So he packed his things and got in his car again and drove away, away and away and further and further and further away until he left the city far behind him.
He would start over again.
He couldn’t work surrounded by those people. By people who knew him too well, by people who know who he is.
So he drove away and left everything behind.
Hoping for something different.
Hoping for something new.
Hoping for freedom.