Work Text:
It had been twenty years, three months, and five days since Wan Yan had started searching for Ghost King Lin Yuan, all to no avail thus far.
It had been six weeks since the Chongming Demon King had suggested to Wan Yan to try recalling his memories, which might convince Lin Yuan to finally meet Wan Yan in person.
It had been two weeks, four days, and six hours since Lin Yuan had reached out to Wan Yan on the Chaofan Forum, telling him a little bit about the black iron fish pendant.
It had been three days since Wan Yan had reached out to that popular information-type forum user, Approaching Science, and asked them to him uncover his memories, and been told a little bit more about his pendant.
It had been five minutes since Wan Yan had exploded on Approaching Science for not being willing to tell him how the eyes on the pendant had become dotted, and he was now feeling quite frankly embarrassed. He was well aware he could be erratic and angry sometimes, snapping at humans and demons alike and causing trouble, which usually resulted in him being beat up by someone. He probably hadn’t always been like this, he thought, at least… not that he would be able to know anyway, given how he’d lost so many of his memories.
At that thought of that, he clenched his claws, a far-too familiar frustration and anger at himself rising up again as he failed to recall his memories yet AGAIN.
WHY IN THE NAME OF THE WAN YAO ALLIANCE WAS IT SO HARD TO REMEMBER?! WAS HE NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH?! HADN’T HE STRUGGLED ENOUGH TRYING TO RECOVER THEM?! AT THIS RATE, HE WOULD NEVER RECOVER HIS MEMORIES, ALL BECAUSE HIS. STUPID. BRAIN. REFUSED. TO. WORK!!!
These thoughts, and more like them, raged through Wan Yan’s head like a typhoon, battering against his brain and increasing his stress levels as his claws dug into the skin of his legs. Suddenly, he realized with a start that his front legs were in extreme pain, and he looked down, only to realize he’d dug into the skin and they were now bleeding. Heavily.
Panicking at the sight of blood on his body, he began hyperventilating, his heart beating a kilometer a minute as sweat trailed down his back and the liquid taste of unforgiving bile flooded his mouth. (If he had been in a better state of mind than he was now, he would have been thinking of how annoying that much sweat was, because he’d have to wash himself later and would taste it.)
Completely ignoring his laptop on the ground, still open on his chat with Approaching Science, although the person had long left it, Wan Yan clutched his chest amidst the throbbing pain he had there, wondering if he was having what he had heard the humans refer to as a “heart attack.” They typically said, when they spoke about it, that such a situation required immediate medical attention, but who would come to help him? The Chongming Demon King was gone, Tie Lao was busy, and Ming He was probably still at the river. He could call the five ghosts…
That was it! The five ghosts! He needed to call them to get someone to come help him! However, when he opened his mouth, he found he had lost the ability to breathe, and couldn’t call out for help.
With deep regret, he realized that he might die here, with no one. Alone.
A notification sound went off on his laptop, and a message appeared in the chat from Approaching Science. It was four simple words: “Breathe in and out.”
What do you think I’m trying to do, doofus?! If Wan Yan hadn’t currently been putting all his energy into trying to survive, he would’ve been ticked off at this human’s idiocy.
”I’m going to count to 100. Try to breathe in at every odd number, and breathe out at every even number,” read Approaching Science’s next message.
While Wan Yan the Cat had no idea how this would help with a heart attack, he assumed it was some weird human medicinal ritual he didn’t understand, and tried to follow the person’s instructions.
Miraculously, it worked. While the blood on his legs didn’t go away (though it had slowed to a stop in the time of his medical emergency), he managed to regain the ability to breathe, and his nausea and chest pain went away. Huh. He guessed human medicine was of a higher quality than he originally thought.
Now that his heart attack had subsided, though, he had the time to reflect on the utter stupidity he had shown just then, in getting that worked up over a bit of blood that had already stopped.
Stupid, stupid, idiot, Wan Yan thought, cursing himself. He was such a fuck-up. All he did was cause problems for people and leave them to clean up after him. He couldn’t do anything right, not even find his own memories? Shit, how humiliating was that? First, he couldn’t recall his own memories, and now this embarrassing scene? He could only find a small amount of relief in the fact that nobody had been around to see it.
He was so pathetic, he might as well kill himself, it’s not like anyone would miss a troublemaker like him who only caused more work for the people around him. No wonder why Lin Yuan didn’t want to meet him. If he was Lin Yuan, he wouldn’t have wanted to meet Wan Yan, either. As he curled up in a ball, leaving the sting of his legs as a problem to address later, his thoughts only spiraled, becoming more and more negative as time went on.
He closed his eyes, ignoring the trail of salty liquid down his face. He couldn’t admit he was crying, even to himself.