"Goodbye Gege!" She held her small companion by her side. The soft plushie was waving his inanimate hands to bid him farewell.

"Goodbye Fu Yao. Goodbye Mr. Dingle Peace."

He bowed for the last time to the staff and the people he had spent last couple of months with. He walked back to the car, by the strength of his own legs. He had finally recovered.

"You managed to made some friends." The pristine lady voiced.

"Why? Does it bother you that they aren't bought by your money?" Wang Yibo grunted. The mother-son duo was sitting in the backseat of their car. His eyes were gazing upon the building of the care center.

It's been a month since they fought. It's been a month since he last saw him. Xiao Zhan stopped coming to rehabilitation center at all.

"Yibo, it appears you still hold a grudge against your father." The refined lady questioned. She knew the answer but she still probed.

"What do you want me to do? Thank him for making a fool out of me?"

It's the thought that counts. Maybe that phrase is wrong. Maybe its not about the good intentions all the time. Why would she keep hurting her son despite wanting nothing bad for him?

He was young and full of life but his life was always in danger because of his heart condition. How could she let him walk on the path of death?

Life without love, isn't life at all

"I must inform you before you misunderstand. Those friends, returned the money back to us." If he's doomed to subdue either way, she might as well, let him live at least.

What?

Wang Yibo looked at her with his questioning gaze.

Is it another one of her sick pranks?

"What do you mean?" his voice full of doubts.

She sighed. It was fault of her miscalculated planning that now even her own son didn't trust her. She only had herself and her husband to blame.

"It is true that we intended to buy your friends for you. But I guess they turned their crisis into a new chance."

A fall into a ditch makes you wiser

"W-what about Xiao Zhan. D-did he return the money as well?"

This past month, if there was one thing which Wang Yibo had been doing, it was forgetting about the elder. Time would make him forget. Time would turn him into another sad experience.

But the only thing he could forget was; how to forget.

"Before I answer that, I need to ask something in return." She turned her gaze at him, staring firmly she asked,

"What is Xiao Zhan to you?"

What a faulty question that was. Would he ask, what is Sun to the Moon? What is Sky to the sea? What is Rainbow to the Rain?

"He's everything to me and at the same time, nothing to me at all."

Love is the wisdom of the fool and folly of the wise.

"I see."

She had tried everything to stop Wang Yibo from dancing. The hired friends were supposed to just humiliate him while dancing on the stage. She didn't know it would break his heart so much, and she didn't foresee that he would be caught up in a serious accident because of it. A part of her was a bit relieved, thinking her son would quit dancing for good but she had forgotten that seeing him in pain was the reason she wanted him to stop in the first place.

And just when she was ready to let her son follow his dreams, he easily bent to her wishes and gave up on dancing, just like that.

She was curious to say the least. So, she did her own research on this said person – Xiao Zhan.

She set a trap but the bait she set was a trap for her own.

"Just as you requested. I contacted the curator to purchase the paintings. Who would have thought I would meet Miss Hana there?"

Miss Hana was a well-known curator, she had good ties with Mrs. Wang. The two were strictly business but taking advantage of the old-time partnership, she decided to test Xiao Zhan.

"I asked her to give Xiao Zhan a golden offer. An offer of a lifetime actually." She begun to narrate. She was together with Miss Hana when they met Xiao Zhan at a fairy convenient place.

"He was given the chance to showcase his paintings In the Berlin alongside renowned artists like Yayoi Kusama, Huma Mulji, Ai Waiwai, So Young Chung and many many more."

Getting to see those artists in one's lifetime was already like a golden spoon but having the chance to exhibit alongside? It was surely like a lucid dream.

"He was not a fool." She humored. Wang Yibo was staring intently, listening the whole ordeal, "He asked me, why would I give him such an opportunity?"

For a big group show like that, he ought to have some solo exhibitions first. He ought to have some recognition first, he ought to have luck as well as skills.

"So, I simply told him what you told me."

"What did you tell him?" Wang Yibo growled. He was not liking the flow of the conversation they had.

"I told him how you begged me. How you asked me to do you this favor. How you sold out what you loved so dearly." She added without a remorse, "That was the second time, I witnessed a person die inside."

The wounds of heart, bleed more than the body

"Why would you do that?!" he roared, anger rushing through his head.

"Why would you do that, Yibo?" She countered. Calm contrary to him.

Why wouldn't he do that? Xiao Zhan lost his chance at exhibition because he was busy taking care of him. Even if it was fake. Even if it was bought, but he knew, that one moment where Xiao Zhan held him while crying, was a genuine feeling from heart. Even if it was for a split second, that fleeting feeling of his was enough for Wang Yibo to believe his heart.

"I was only trying to –"

"Help him?" She cut him. "You were only trying to help him. You were only doing what you thought was right for him. You were only looking out for him in your own way?" She was so calm, almost detached, "That's exactly what we've been doing for you too, Yibo."

When you keep numbing the pain, it rushes out the moment you feel again.

How did he become the person he hated the most? Does love make you so blind that you end up hurting the person you love the most?

Third time. She just witnessed another person die inside.

"He never took the money from us. I didn't get to buy his paintings." She tried to ease his heart.

If the pain of his aching heart could be measured, it would fill all the ocean and flood all the sky.

. . .

"Y-Yibo."

They were as surprise as to see him as he was surprised to be there. Wang Yibo never thought he would step back into the dance studio again. It was place where he learnt to live and it was a place where he was pushed to rot.

"I'll make it short." Wang Yibo begun. His eyes a blaze, "What kind of relationship do you have with Xiao Zhan."

After the initial shock, his former friends decided to confess,

"W-we thought Xiao Zhan was like us." One of them begun.

"Like you?" Wang Yibo seethed. They flinched at the tone of his voice but they knew they deserved it.

"When we first saw Xiao Zhan with you. We thought he was also 'pretend friend' which your father bought for you."

The contract was an easy one. They had to two tasks. One was to befriend Yibo. And the other was to humiliate him so he would quite dancing. But his passion for dance was so pure that they felt ashamed after bashing him out.

They were offered a good amount of money to pay for their tuition fee and after fulfilling the tasks, they were warned to never let anyone know.

"We thought he was under the same conditions as us so we pretended to be the workers under Mr. Wang."

[Flashback]

Xiao Zhan had just received the call from Miss Hana, that there was a potential client to buy her paintings. Since she said she was close to the rehabilitation center, Xiao Zhan asked them to wait in the café while he could bring Wang Yibo and Fu Yao back in their rooms. While he was returning to the car, two young boys approached him. They looked almost the same age as Yibo, maybe a year or two older.

"Excuse me, you're Wang Yibo's friend, right?" One of them asked.

"Yes?" Xiao Zhan titled his head in confusion. As far as he knew, Wang Yibo didn't have any friends, then who could these people be? But they answered his query next.

"Mr. Wang send us here."

Mr. Wang? Yibo's father?

"Mr. Wang sent the money for this week." The other guy gave an envelope full of money to Xiao Zhan.

Money for this week? Is it Yibo's pocket money?

From the past months that he had known Wang Yibo, his parents or family members never came to visit. The rehabilitation center didn't have any VIP rooms. Because their goal was not to just make people heal their bodies but also their minds. And for that to achieve, they needed to maintain a status quo.

But when Wang Yibo was admitted into the hospital, the room was ultra-fancy. Xiao Zhan had never seen hospital look so comfy before. And all that money could only come with lots of hard work. So, he assumed, his parents were simply too busy to visit him and it was their own way to care for Yibo's needs.

"Okay, I will be sure to give it to Yibo." Xiao Zhan accepted the envelope but the givers had a very different reaction. What they said next only made Xiao Zhan more perplexed.

"This is money for you."

"For me?"

"I know you're under a contract but you don't have to pretend, we are all workers under Mr. Wang. This is a bonus for extra care."

That was a big red flag. Xiao Zhan learnt something was utterly wrong. Either they were people who wanted to harm Wang Yibo or simply people with lots of free time to scam strangers around.

"Huh? I-I'm sorry you must have mistaken me for someone else." Xiao Zhan bowed and dashed away.

[Flashback ends]

Wang Yibo was lost of words. Before coming to the dance studio, he prepared himself for the worst. He braced himself to even lower the bar of 'good' if it was for Xiao Zhan.

He simply wanted to see him again.

But he was not prepared to be wrong. He hadn't arranged his thoughts to believe that the kindness really would prevail. Now how could he even look himself in the mirror?

Those who bring rainbow in to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves

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Sorry for errors and Thank you for reading.

Those who bring sunshine in to the lives of the others can not keep it from themselves – James B. Marie

Love is the wisdom of the fool and folly of the wise – S. Johnson