Chapter Text
As Zhan Yao falls, blood pouring from his side, he thinks about breakfast.
He’d woken to youtiao and soy milk, scallion pancakes, spring rolls. There was toast, too, in case Zhao Yao was feeling too paper thin to manage anything more.
As always, Zhan Yao had felt warm and soft and honoured. It’s not that the breakfast was any great feat for Bai Yutong the way it would have been for Zhan Yao; after all, there isn’t much the Bai siblings can’t do. Still, he didn’t have to do this, and the thoughtfulness of it touched Zhan Yao’s heart.
He had sat at Bai Yutong’s side and kissed him good morning, first on his lips and then his forehead. As he’d sat, smiling and picking up a scallion pancake, he had marvelled at how they had finally ended up here. It’s been a long and winding road from childhood friendship, to estrangement, then hostility when they reunited. Then slowly, friendship again, then falling. And landing here, side by side.
After breakfast Zhan Yao loads the dishwasher — the least he can do — then gets ready for work. At the door, a kiss, lingering — they do not bring their relationship to work, at Bai Sir’s insistence.
Funny how that doesn’t seem to count now.
Bai Yutong is screaming his name, falling to his knees by his side and pressing his hands to the centre of the throbbing pain in Zhan Yao’s torso.
Zhan Yao’s attention is blurred with pain and the taste of copper fills his mouth. He is vaguely aware of Wang Shao calling for a bus, of Ma Han and Zhao Fu running after the perp, but his focus narrows as the pain consumes him, vision going grey around the edges.
“Yutong,” he says, and coughs. He wants to raise his hand, but his arm won’t move.
“I’m here, hold on.” It is a command, but Zhan Yao has never been all that good at following orders.
“Thank you for breakfast,” Zhan Yao says, and blackness closes in.