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Jian Yi was ‘saved’.
After he was stolen from the street that day, shoved in the back of a van, with a sleepy piece of cloth over his mouth, he was captive in a cell for about three weeks. The people who took him; their mission was simple. He was bait.
A lure, for his fathers gang or whatever to retrieve him after sending them a lot of money. But he was expendable, he knew that.
He knew, from Qiu’s slip of tongue, that these people wouldn’t hesitate to kill him. It was evident, too, in how they’d hit him and take pictures of his bloody face as he was tied to a chair. How they’d put a knife to his neck just to tease him, and make him cry and beg for his life on video to provoke He Cheng into having less and less time to make a plan in which he could save Jian and also not give them the money.
They’d give him questions he didn’t know the answers to, and have buckets of water thrown on him at his lack of correspondence.
They hardly fed him. When they did, it was just rice. It could be worse, but he was so hungry.
Every chance they took, they’d humiliate him, spoon feeding him as if he were a baby. The leader and his father must’ve had serious issues before he died, and he made sure to take out all that anger on Jian. A type of rage someone feels where it didn’t matter who they hurt, it made them feel good.
It was terrifying. He didn’t want to die.
He’d cried his supply of tears by the time he was ‘saved’.
He was zoned out in the cell when he heard a commotion. His door opened loudly, slamming against the wall, and Jian looked up a little as he was approached quickly.
All his chains came loose, and he was dragged to his feet in a hurry, then placed in a chokehold with a gun to his temple and backed into a corner, being used as a shield. His limbs were all dead from his position these last three weeks, and the cuffs on his ankles and his wrists had left painful dents. All that keeps him up is the hold on his neck.
With the strength of a small ant, he gripped at the forearm helplessly, and his eyes opened a slither as he heard tons more shoes hitting the floor suddenly.
A crowd of men in black suits draw their guns, and Jian’s been hit in his head so much these last couple tense days that he can’t really make out a face, he just hopes they’re finally going to get him out of here so he can see XiXi again like how it worked last time.
“Let him go, now.” One of the men says, and the metal on Jian’s head rustles, and he flinches. “We’ve given the money, you don’t touch him anymore.”
“Y-you have to promise not to kill me!” The man behind him shouts, trembling.
“Yeah, yeah. We have no business with you, just hand us the kid.” The other man says, beckoning at Jian, who whimpers when he feels the grip on him loosen.
He’s thrown forward and a suit runs forward to grab him under the shoulders and pick him up before he could ragdoll to the ground. Gunshots fire around him.
In his desperation, he hugs the man with the strength he can muster in his arms. He was saved.
Supposedly.
He really did believe it.
He woke up a couple days later after passing out.
He had a concussion, and he was bruised to oblivion, covered in bandages and plasters, attached to a drip. He felt so weak.
No one’s beside him when he wakes, and he figures maybe his friends are all at school and that’s why but… Eventually, he finds it in himself to sit up and look out the window next to his bed. His head tilts. Ahead of him is just… water?
The door opens and he jolts, snapping towards them.
“You’re up.” A random man says, “We were starting to worry.”
“… Where am I?”
“…” The man looks to the side, “You’re on your grandfather's island.”
Jian’s eyebrows furrow. “What?”
“It’ll be a lot to take in, in your current condition… Your grandfather doesn’t think you’re safe back home anymore, you’re going to be here for a while. You’ll have to speak to him for specifics.”
“A while? How long’s a while?”
At the man’s shrug, Jian feels uneasy.
After a week of healing up, Jian goes to speak to this grandfather of his after a much needed shower.
He’s given a black blazer to wear with black trousers, and a white dress shirt. He’s lead around the massive building by a man with black, slick-backed hair, until the meet a tall door, guarded by other people who look just like him.
The doors open, and Jian walks in. Is his grandpa the fucking king of England or what?
At the end of the room, he sees him. He’s an old man with a cane, wrinkles in his face, and a frown you can tell never leaves his mouth. He’s in dark clothes, but a little more casual; a cardigan with a white shirt and a scarf, with the trousers on.
Jian fidgets with his hands as he has to address him.
“Hello…” He says, and the man looks at him.
Jian can’t tell if the man is pleased or disappointed when he says, “You look just like your mother.”
The blonde nods, “I get told that quite a lot…” Then he sighs, “Listen, I really thank you for your help, but I’d really like to go home now.” He admits, trying to be polite.
“I can’t do that.” The man grumbles.
“What do you mean?”
“Things are tense. You’ve been in danger for a while, and that all finally started boiling over. You need safety. Not just a bodyguard.” He explains, and Jian gulps.
“W-well when will I be safe then? When can I go home?” He steps forward.
“You’re a scrawny little thing. He Cheng has informed me of your lack of strength, also. Your mother didn’t raise you right. My plan is to toughen you up, so you can handle the responsibility your mother and your father have put on you. When you can protect yourself, that’s when you can go.” He bows his head, talking very final, denying Jian of any choice in the matter.
“You can’t just do that, I have school, I have things to do back home?! My friends?!” Jian says, exasperated.
“You can be educated here for now, and your friends are uninvolved.”
“I don’t have a choice?”
“You don’t.” The man glares at him, then lifts his hand up in a way that must alert one of the men. “Take him to his room.”
“Wait, wait, can I at least contact my friends? Can I have a phone? Mine was in my bag when I got kidnapped…” He calls out as he’s dragged away by the arm.
“You can watch TV and read books, don’t make this difficult.”
He gets put in the room; it’s sterile and clean, and so not him at all. The door closes and that’s when Jian realises. He wasn’t saved at all.
After two more weeks of watching TV on his floor, letting his wounds fully heal, a suit comes into the room.
“How are you feeling today?”
“Bored.”
The man nods, “We have something new for you to do today, if you could come with me.”
Jian grunts as he stands, following him and looking around the halls. There are pictures of his dad scattered about, it’s really weird. They reach some stairs that go down, into the floor, and Jian discovers very quickly that it’s a large gym for all the henchmen to use. He gets taken past all the machinery, and towards a ring. A boxing ring.
“Your grandfather told you already why you’re here. This is where you’re going to get stronger. You’ll train more and more with every week.” The man taps the rope. “For today, we’re going to be testing how you are right now. This is Haomu, you’ll be fighting him today. He’s one of our rookie’s so it shouldn’t be too difficult.”
Jian looks at Haomu. His shirt is off, displaying his muscled body. Rookie?!
He gulps, and some boxing gloves are placed on his chest for him to take and put on. The man who brought him here also fastens a boxing helmet to his head, explaining that Jian could probably do without another concussion.
Seriously, he’s gone from walking to school to being kidnapped and tortured, and now from watching TV to fighting someone so early in the morning. He sighs when he steps in, and the man raises a brow at his lack of fighting posture.
“Are you ready?”
“Yeah let’s get it over with.” Jian nods, and the man lunges, and hardly has time to bring his forearms up as a gloved fist slams into him, pushing him to the floor with an ‘oomph’.
The man stands over him, “Stand up, let’s go again.”
And Jian does, and he does again and again, as every single time, he gets knocked down. Punched in his arms, his head, his stomach, or swiped by his feet.
All three of them have the same thought:
This is going to take forever.
And it does.
Four years.
Jian’s there for four years.
His hope faded slowly but surely. His eyes eventually had no light in them. His skin is pale, and he’s bony but sturdy. His hair is long, and his once life-full strand of hair lays dead and swaying between his eyes. Bruises stain his knuckles. He drinks a lot, constantly stealing alcohol from the bar downstairs. He feels like a caged animal.
His days consist of fighting, running, guitar (his grandfather allowed a hobby; Jian chose guitar with the hope it would come to use with that band idea back in middle school, pretty stupid looking back), and thinking and sleeping.
He has only one person to rely on, a man he’d met on the beach one time.
He was sat in front of the waves, debating whether he could swim home. The ocean around them spread so far and wide, it was abyssal. The wind blew his hair all around.
“Hey there.” The man said to him, his voice rough. Jian turned his head around with a lack of urgency.
“What now?” Jian asked, rolling his eyes. He hated everyone there.
“I’m not here to take you anywhere.” The man answers, standing next to him. “I just arrived here recently. To the island, I mean, I’ve worked under your grandfather for a long time now.”
“Did you want a tour?”
The man huffs in amusement, “No. I just heard, Xianjun’s son has been here.” He sits down, and Jian looks at him. “You look nothing like your old man, huh? Heard you’ve got the spirit of him though.”
His grandfather said the same thing often.
“Apparently. Not that I’d know though.”
The man with white hair nods. He looks very intimidating. He has dark clothes on that latch onto his skin through belts over all parts of his body. His skin is ghost white, his hair just the same. Around his neck hangs a gaiter with a skull design.
“I was very close with your father.” The man says, “Trust me, I know. That man was stubborn. Rebellious. Mr Jian says you never listen either. Your heart’s too big for this line of work.”
“Mh…”
“What are you thinking about over here?”
“Nothing.”
“You have to be thinking of something.”
“Just want to go home.”
“Got friends back there?”
“Yeah.” Jian nods, kneading grains of sand through his fingers.
“Talk a bit more, it’s nice to get it off your chest. I’d like to know a bit more about my friend's son too.”
Jian thinks about it for a second before he decides, why not. He, strangely, felt easy to talk to. As if he’d spoken to him before.
“… I had a lot of friends. A lot of people in school were friendly with me. I had four main friends though… Redhead, Buzzcut, Xiao Hui… Zhan ZhengXi.” He recounts.
“Any luck with love? Your father was a lover boy.” The man asks, looking up to the sky. The air has a cold breeze.
“No. I don’t know… I’m very fond of someone, but they’ll never feel the same way about me.” He rolls his neck. “Or, I think. Things were weird before I got taken. Not that I’ll ever know now.”
“What was she like?”
“He… was the first friend I ever had.” The man’s eyes widen slightly. “He probably missed me like crazy when I disappeared. I can’t tell if I want him to miss me still or move on.”
“You think there was a chance he liked you back?”
Jian shrugs. “He used to be really harsh with me, but after I confessed to him… He got really soft with me. He started blushing a lot around me, and doing things a boyfriend would do… I never had the balls to ask him straight up.”
“Would you have the balls now?”
“No.”
“Hm.” The man hums. “Any good at school?”
“Not really. But, before I was taken I’d just gotten into the same highschool as XiXi, and he’s pretty smart. I studied so much during break… So fucking annoying.” He closes his eyes and looks down. “I did everything I've ever done, and for what.” He shakes his head, anger bubbling up. “I’m going now.”
The man lets him, watching him go.
Jian figures the man must look over him because of his closeness with his father.
Jian doesn’t tell him his plan.
Jian is going to kill himself.
After a lot of consideration, he figures that’d be the thing that either gets him home or the thing that takes him away from here forever.
Through all his talks with his grandfather, it’s been made clear the old guy has an attachment to him. Although he was bitter, Jian’s weaknesses were just like his fathers, and the man must find it hard to hate him. He was harsh, in a way that hardly felt like ‘love’, but Jian’s sure this is the only way the cruel guy knew how to express that feeling.
Isolating him, beating him, working him to exhaustion, so he could be ‘better’. So he didn’t end up like ‘him’.
The guy even paid that other group that large sum of money to save him.
The conclusion; Jian had to be safe and alive. So, he had to make sure the old man thought he wasn’t safe here.
He draws a bit of attention when he does it. He pickpockets a combat knife from one of the men and runs away fast, then goes to his room and shuts the bathroom door before anyone can catch him. He backs up into the corner and puts the blade to his wrist.
Two clean, deep cuts are made through the veins at the base of his hand and he sinks to the ground.
He grabbed the wound instinctively and groaned. It hurt so bad, but he had to.
His eyes squeeze shut, and he feels the warm blood pool between his fingers and drip on the ground. The blood loss makes him feel nauseous very quickly.
He flinches when the door starts getting kicked in. They scream his name, and eventually the door bangs open.
Jian’s leaning against the side of the tub. As his consciousness fades, some part of his brain visualises Zhengxi looking at him. He realises how okay he’d be if he didn’t wake up at all, as long as he didn’t have to see that expression ever again.
But of course, because he wanted that, it wasn’t what he got.
He wakes up in that all too familiar room, facing the ocean, and his eyes widen immediately at the sight of his grandfather next to the bed.
His wrist is heavily bandaged and he has a drip again, and an oxygen mask. His grandfather locks eyes with him and sighs.
“Just what the hell are you playing at, boy?”
Jian rolls his eyes, looking away.
He doesn’t get sent home. Yet. Something new breaks in him though.
He thinks, somehow, all this time, his brain has been emotionally blocked, and now that he’s tried to kill himself, he’s going insane. It was part of a logical plan, but he knew, he really was okay with dying. It’s such a weird thing to think.
He thinks about all of it. Everything. He gets flashbacks a lot more frequently now. With his acceptance of fate; of death, came his lack of attachment to whatever was keeping him fighting. All that’s left is…
He escapes the room on a quiet day after everyone deducts he’s not going to do anything stupid. He walks to the roof with his IV drip being used as a crutch.
The breeze is soft as he stands so high up, looking down. He breathes peacefully.
What are people living for, he’d asked once before.
To do the things they want, was the answer.
What if there’s nothing you want? He asked again. There was no reply, and Jian figures that’s because the truth was gruesome.
This was the answer.
Everyone would be fine without him. It was only him who solely relied on those around him. Who couldn’t breathe if they didn’t breathe. All his friends are probably in college now, or at work, or both. XiXi too, was probably doing really great things, even without him. Not like Jian, who couldn’t do anything of any merit without him.
The view is pretty from up here. His brain supplies him with the memory of the place XiXi had taken him.
XiXi…
Do you think about me?
He whispers it.
I asked you to never leave me, but I was the one who left.
He closes his eyes.
He apologises in his head as he shifts forward, and he’s quickly snapped out of his head as the back of his shirt is grabbed.
Jide wordlessly pulls him down and catches him, holding his biceps in a comforting way.
“Don’t be so stupid, Jian Yi.” He says firmly, “I’m working on getting you out of here, okay? I’m talking to him. You just have to hold on.”
Jian shakes his head and grabs at the fabric on the man’s waist. Jide leads him carefully back down the stairs as he cries, covering his face with his much too thin hands.
A couple days later, Jian is sat with his legs hanging off the bed with his grandfather in front of him, solemn.
“I… won’t keep you here any longer.” The old man says. “You can fight more than when you first arrived here. You’re resilient. You had been. I… took that from you. Jide has told me how you truly feel, and I cannot stop you from your way of life just as I couldn’t stop your father.” He shakes his head, tired.
“You’ll go home, under suicide watch in He Cheng’s place for a while… and I will have you under supervision. But you’ll go home, if you can accept that any consequences of that, fall on you.”
Jian nods.
He leaves the next day, as if it was that easy the whole time. As if it never happened at all.