Chapter Text
“Wake up, honey, it’s time to get ready for school.”
Jerking awake and sitting up quickly Suowei looks around blearily, confusion filling him, as he stares at the familiar walls of his childhood bedroom.
Why is he home? How is he home? He was just in Chi Cheng’s apartment, so how did he get here?
After a moment his mom’s words sunk in. School? What does she mean? I just graduated so why would I need to get ready for school? While those thoughts circled around in his head he instinctively knows something is wrong. Something feels off. He feels off. Something isn’t right with his body, he realizes.
Standing up, he nearly passes out. His field of view has significantly changed. What is this?! Why did I shrink?! Panic hit him hard. Running to the bathroom he blacks out for a second when he looks in the mirror, barely managing to grab the sink as he sways.
Who the hell is that? He questions. It’s him, he knows it’s him, but the reflection staring back at him isn’t his face at 23, but from when he was 18!
How is this possible?! He shrieks internally.
“Ok, ok, calm down. This is obviously a dream.” He mumbles to himself while pacing the length of the bathroom.
“Let’s see.” He pinches his arm hard. “Ouch!” He yelps.
It’s hurts… It didn’t hit him right away, but when it did… OH MY GOD, IT HURTS! ITS REAL! THIS IS REAL! WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?!
What the hell happened? How is this possible? He has a millions questions and no answers. Pulling his hair a little in frustration and fear he tries to think.
The last thing he remembers is falling asleep after Chi Cheng confessed about his ex-lover ditching him and running away after betraying him. He remembers the guilt he felt in that moment. He is deceiving him. Chi Cheng sees him as an actual prospective partner, but here he is playing tricks on him.
He had tried to confess everything in that moment, but Chi Cheng, too drunk, ended up falling asleep on his shoulder. No matter how hard he tried to wake him up he didn’t budge, so all Suowei could do was also sleep. He had resolved to make everything right in the morning, but now what is this???
Staring at himself again in the mirror he takes in his slightly chubby cheeks, still stubbornly hanging on to some childhood baby fat. His eyes are rounder than he remembers them being. His hair, sticking up in all different directions is slightly long at this age. He remembers thinking it made him look nice, but it really only made him appear scruffier than he already did.
I’ll need to cut it. He muses, touching it lightly, forgetting his predicament for a moment.
He’s brought back to reality by his mom calling him again, and so his meltdown begins once more.
What to do, what to do. He could pretend to feel unwell? No, he didn’t want to worry his mom. Maybe pretend to be asleep? No, she’ll just wake him up. The craziness of the situation is really making it hard for him to think properly.
Gah! Whatever. I’ll have to face her sooner or later today. She won’t just leave him alone if she knows something is wrong. She’ll fuss at him.
“Coming!” He finally answers, taming his hair a little before walking out of the room.
“What took you so long?” She asks curiously. “I heard you running around since I first called you.”
He laughs nervously. “Nothing, Mama. Don’t worry about it.” He assures.
They eat breakfast in silence, Suowei still stuck in his thoughts and trying to figure out if this is a hyper realistic dream or not. He decides to ask the one other question that had been plaguing him.
“Mama, what’s the date today?” He asks tentatively. He is too scared to look at his phone and confirm the date himself.
She hums softly, looking to the side. “It’s September 30th.”
“Year?” He stutters anxiously.
She raises an eyebrow. “Year?” She repeats.
He nods, heartbeat pounding a mile a minute.
“2019.” She responds slowly, a worried look in her eye when he suddenly pales. “Are you ok, dear? You’ve been acting weird since you came down. Is something wrong?”
He opens his mouth to respond, but how do you tell someone everything is wrong because he is somehow back in the past, without sounding crazy?
Instead he just waves his hands in front of him he shakes his head quickly. “Nothing, nothing,” Rubbing the back of his head he continues. “I just had a really odd dream, that’s all. I’m going to change for school.”
Standing up he goes off to get ready. He had forgotten how worn out his school uniform and shoes were. They didn’t really have money to buy a new one, so he had worn the same one from freshmen year to his last year of high school. It still fit around the waist, but he had grown a bit through the years, so the pant legs were a little short. He got in trouble more than once for it, but what could he do? They couldn’t afford another one.
Finally ready he sets out.
His day is a blur as he moves through it more on autopilot than actual awareness. He can’t concentrate in classes and doesn’t even know where they even were curriculum wise. He figures it’s a lost cause to even try for today, maybe he’ll wake up later and it really will have been a dream, so why bother anyway.
It’s on his way home that he comes across something that makes his breath hitch and his heart pound quickly. There, across the road he sees them. Chi Cheng, Guo Chengyu, and a man he doesn’t recognize.
It’s obviously Chi Cheng and Guo Chengyu, just younger. They really haven’t changed much visually, but the air around them feels different. Chi Cheng especially feels different. Softer, somehow. Maybe because he’s younger?
No, he realizes when he sees him snake ann arm around the unknown man and pull him closer. It’s because he’s with his lover. The look in his eyes is unmistakable, Chi Cheng doesn’t look at people like that. That’s definitely the lover that abandoned him.
Too much was going on. He couldn’t process anything anymore. His head started to hurt from the whole days events, so he just kept walking home, not even questioning what they were doing in the countryside in the first place.
There isn’t much to do around here, so what business could they possibly have here? He wonders. Ok, he lied, he is curious. Only a little though.
Arriving home he greets his mom and goes straight upstairs, letting himself fall face first onto his bed. As he drifts off to sleep from the draining day he hopes when he wakes up everything is back to normal.
Well, there’s the first chapter! Hope you enjoyed. Updates will be sporadic, no schedule.
Merry Christmas guys!
Lots of Love,
Redmoon3