The Way We Fell - Lin Yanjun
[a/n: sorry i been posting. i really love yanjun tho and seeing him in the new banana series gave me motivation to finish this, though.]
[cxk, cln, fcc, hmh, lyj, zzt, wzy, wlk, yzj] / masterlist
“If you keep loving like that, you’re bound to get hurt.”
Those are the words Lin Yanjun would always tell you.
He thinks you’re quite...odd - annoying, if he wants to hurt your feelings. How could somebody be so in love with everything that comes into contact with them? The rain, the sunshine, the stars in the sky and the sea that shimmers below. Everyday, Yanjun hears you profess your love for everything and everyone.
He hates it - how you throw yourself into love with anyone and anything. He thinks it’s pointless. Why love something that may never love you back? he constantly thinks when he’s around you.
“Heartbreaks are a part of life,” you always tell him. “It’s how you grow.”
If that’s how height worked, Yanjun doesn’t think that he would’ve made it past the age of an average two year old.
Lin Yanjun, to say the least, was not somebody to love. He was cold hearted. He thought there was more to life than just finding someone to fall in love with. And if that were true, he thought that he shouldn’t waste all of his time trying to find it.
Little did he know that if love wasn’t something that one would find, much rather something that would find you.
Nobody could understand the relationship between the two of you. Somebody who spurted vibrancy constantly clinging to someone with rain clouds over their head. It was an unsightly clash and yet, you stuck with him.
Because that’s what you do when somebody calls you first in their time of need. It’s what you do when somebody puts your needs before their own. You fall into love with those who need to be loved and so whole heartedly did you fall for Yanjun.
He meets you during his childhood. He’s not sure why or how or more exactly when you became a nuisance in his life but you came and never left his side. You were constantly inviting yourself over or ringing on his doorbell so that he could come out and play. But he never told you to go away. Not even when he was angry with you for breaking his new toy or making him fall off of his scooter. He’d simply say that he needs to go home and readies himself for the next day when you come bounding through his doorway with a shit eating grin plastered across your face.
He doesn’t have a lot of friends growing up. He likes to keep to himself, quietly moving between the halls of the school with a sour look etched on his face. And yet, everyone knows who he is.
You had many friends. Everyone in the school considered you their friend. People were always inviting you out to lunch and parties and to hang out after school. But you, more times than not, would reject. You knew Yanjun liked to stay in the library during lunch. You knew he wasn’t much for the party scene. You didn’t want to leave him. So every day, you’d always bring to paper sacks and throw them on the table, smiling happily as he glared at you.
After school, he’d drive you home. He never speaks up about how much he hates the song you love so much. He lets you fiddle with the heater or the AC even when he starts to shudder or sweat. He’s quiet, really. The only time he speaks up is when you don’t put your seatbelt on as soon as you sit down in his car.
“You have a big ass head and I don’t want it to go flying through my windshield,” he’d grumble as he reaches over your body to grab your strap. He clicks the metal in and then speeds out of the parking lot in hopes that he only has to hear that annoying song twice.
When you both arrive to his house, he lets you pull him onto the bed and rest your head on his chest. He strokes your head with one hand and plays with his phone in the other. He acts like he doesn’t care that you’re there. He always does. But when your soft breaths even out, he can’t help but smile. He never tells you, but he wants to stay like this forever.
Yanjun has a hard time saying he loves you. You know that much. He’s mean in a way. He calls your names and sometimes, it’s enough to hurt your feelings. He closes himself off. He walks away from you. There are times where you find yourself asking if he loves you as much as you love him. But then, when he softly holds your hand in a crowded area or thrusts a glass of water your way, part of you knows he cares. It’s times like this where you’re reminded that if Yanjun truly did hate you as much as he claims he does, he would’ve let you go earlier. He wasn’t somebody who just kept people around that he didn’t find necessary. Maybe that’s what gave you comfort to sleep at night.
There are times where you want to ask him what the two of you are. The question burns as he hovers above you and kisses the life from your body. As much as you whisper that you love him between your teeth, he never gives himself enough time to say it back to you. He always seems to avoid saying it back to you.
The question of if Yanjun does love you in even the slightest gawns at your bones on nights like that.
The question becomes more evident as you start to talk to a nice boy by the name of Honglin. He takes you out on dates and buys you flowers. Sure, the flowers he gets you makes you sneeze and perhaps you weren’t particularly fond of the movies or restaurants he picks but he tries and he expresses how much he likes you whenever he gets the chance to.
At one point on a date to the movies, Honglin places his hand on your thigh. You push it away kindly and take to holding it but he eventually finds a way to sneak his hand back a little too close for comfort. You tell him to stop and instead, he pecks your lips and squeezes the flesh between his fingers. You laugh awkwardly and after a few minutes, excuse yourself to the bathroom.
Yanjun shows up five minutes later, barging into the bathroom and sees you sitting on the counter with a shaken expression. He scoffs and rolls his eyes, grabbing you by the wrist and dragging you out before anyone could yell at him.
It’s when you exit that you see Honglin standing there expectantly. He raises his eyebrows at Yanjun and tries to speak with you but Yanjun cuts in.
“This date is over. We’re leaving,” he states coldly.
“And who are you?” Honglin scoffs.
Yanjun smirks. “More than you’ll ever be, that’s for sure.”
Yanjun is the first person you ever share a kiss with when you were younger, the first person you ever slept with, the first person you ever tell that you love with their whole heart. And as time moves on, Yanjun is the last as well.
He smiles back at the old memories. At twenty two, never did Yanjun think he’d have to experience death the way that he did.
He still remembers. You both were away at college when you had first fallen ill. He takes you home for the weekend and tells your parents how fickle you are nowadays and blames it on being homesick. He kisses you hard and leaves back the next day because he has an exam that he can’t miss.
He swings you texts while you’re gone and wants to know when he should pick you up again. You tell him that your parents want you to stay home and he doesn’t pick into it.
Because the next time he sees you, is during the second month of summer. He had already spent the first month away on vacation with his family and returns to find you in a hospital bed.
He wants to know why you didn’t tell him - why you lied when he asked if you were okay. You tell him that it’s because he was so happy for once in his life and you loved him too much to take that away from him. He shakes his head and tells you that if you loved him as much as you say you do, you would’ve told him as soon as you found out. He calls you the most selfish person he‘s ever met then leaves, slamming the door behind him.
You’re not even angry at him.
Because you’ve learned over the years of loving Yanjun that you need to love every side of him. His happy side that occasionally breaks out as he throws his head back to laugh, his sleepy side that wants to cuddle and be the smaller spoon, his indecisive side that takes thirty minutes to order, but especially the angry side of him. The side of him that lashes out and runs away. The side of him that swears he won’t come back this time. The side of him that takes over a big chunk of his personality.
Because it’s not you he’s angry at. It’s himself.
He’s never yelled at you. He’s never said mean things directly to you. You’re almost sixteen when you realize it and it starts to make sense. He runs away to keep himself from saying things he doesn’t mean and screams his thoughts into reality when he’s by himself.
He’ll always come back to you with red eyes and lay down. He’ll curse at you for being so stupid for loving someone like him and hold you until you swear, he’s never going to let go.
So when he comes back a week later, thinner and tired, you move over and let him collapse next to you.
“It’s not fair,” he whimpers.
“Life isn’t fair,” you tell him.
He spends his days next to you, kisses your face and rubs your hair over and over again. He knows you can’t promise forever - not anymore. But when you’re finally asleep after a long day, he tells you that he hopes you’ll wait for him in the next life and he’ll give you a forever you deserve.
He should’ve told you he loved you when you were still alive and breathing. He should’ve- He should’ve said it to you when you were healthy. All the chances he had and he’s simply just...kiss you and take your breath away and hope you understood the words he struggled with.
The day you pass leaves him broken.
Many people try to reach out to him but he’s too busy hiding away in his room sobbing until his entire face is red and blotchy, until his nose is runny and until he feels like his throat is bleeding from hours of screaming.
It’s not fair to him that you left him here, he thinks as he stumbles around town in a drunken stupor.
He spirals out of control more and more. He drinks until he has to be carried out of the bar, barely eats and blocks everyone out. He’ll continue like that for two months until he gets a call.
Your parents ask him to come over. They want to empty out your room finally and want him to take anything he wants.
Your spirit still lingers in the scent of your sheets. He thinks about all the mischievous nights he’s scaled the side of your house just to come and sleep next to you. He thinks about how many times he’s sat and teased you on this very bed. He thinks about all the times he’s touched you here, kissed you there and let his hands roam wherever you’d let him.
He sees your vanity and all of the jewelry. He thinks of all the times he just watched you get ready and wanted to tell you how beautiful you were but the words always got caught in his mouth when you looked at him. You took his breath away every time.
He should’ve told you that you were the most ethreal being he’s ever laid eyes on. He should’ve found a way to regain his sense and just tell you instead of brushing your hair back and kissing you senseless.
He opens a drawer next to him and sees a small jewelry box. It’s not one he’s seen before and he wonders if it’s always been here. He sits up right and pulls it into his lap, carefully opening it as a lullaby starts to sing.
A music box, he thinks as he comes across a stack of envelopes inside. His eyebrows scrunch together, cocks his head to the side and turns it over in his hands.
He’s not sure if he should open them. There’s no receiver on them and he’s scared that he’ll see something he shouldn’t. But, as if he can hear you urging him, his fingers slice open the one on the very top.
He already misses you when he sees your handwriting, messy yet beautiful. He thinks of all the times he watched you taking notes, all the times he teased you for your pendmentship and yet, he wants it inked on his skin.
He scrunches his eyebrows as he sees his name written at the very top of the page.
So it is meant for him, he thinks as he begins to read.
If you’ve found this box, it means that I’ve already passed on to the other side. You don’t know this, but I was actually sick for a very long time. About six months before you took me home, I was told that the illness within me would take my life faster than I could even pronounce it.
Yanjun, it would be selfish of me to ask you not to be sad. I know you. You’re angry at me, no? You’re going to look at me and scream that this isn’t some romance novel that I used to fawn over when we were in middle school and that you are no Agustus. I know that, Yanjun. But I also know that there’s a weakness that lies within you that may unravel upon hearing about my illness and I just...couldn’t take that smile from you just yet. Not when your life is going so well, not when you’re finally making amends with your family, not now.
Yanjun, I’m sorry that I left you in the manner that I did. You, of all the people I’ve come across, of all the people I’ve fallen in and out of love with, of all the drops in the ocean and stars in the sky, deserve to know, in the very least, what love is. I hoped that during my life, you learned as much.
I never intended for this to happen but you always said that things happened for a reason, don’t they? We hurt so we can feel true growth, cry so we can feel true happiness and love so hard that you swear the world will burst at its seams. And to experience that all by your side, Lin Yanjun, was the truest honor of them all.
There’s this saying that you always said to me, the one about actions speaking louder than words and I can’t help but think about all the times you wordlessly told me you loved me. I knew you loved me back, Yanjun. Don’t worry.
From you shoving me on the safer side of the sidewalk to you holding me while I cried. Everything you did for me screamed back in the love you gave me. As I’m laying here, writing this letter, I can’t help but think of how in love you are with me.
Lin Yanjun, I love you. I’m so glad to leave this world knowing you loved me too. I’m so grateful for all of the time we spent together, for all of our good times and for all of our bad times. You made me into the person I was.
Yanjun, I hope in our next life, you and I will be able to stay together long enough for me to hear you tell me that you love me. In our next life, let’s live long and healthy. In our next life, let’s not hold back the things we wish to say the most.
With that being said, in this box is 364 more letters. All of them have been written here and there over the years with things I had wished I had said to you. Some of them are good, some of them are bad but as you can see, I held back just as much as you. Please take care of them well, Yanjun.
I know the way we fell for each other wasn’t the most ideal. The way we fell left us brusied and scared but Yanjun, I wouldn’t want to have lived this life another way. I hope that you feel that way too.
I should go. There are too many tear stains on this sheet now, no?
I love you, Lin Yanjun. Never forget that. You and I are of the same star. We are destined to be with each other in our many lives to come. We will always find our way back to each other.
Yours, and forever yours,
Yanjun reads the letter over and over again, eyes brimming with tears. “I love you too,” he whispers. “I’m always going to love you.”
He leaves with just that box. It’s enough for him. It’s the only thing he needs. With your love, Yanjun plans to grow and morph into the person you wished you had lived to see him become. He will stand a little straighter and speak a bit louder and let love find him.
Because that’s what you do for the person who you call during your time of need. It’s what you do when somebody puts your needs before their own. You fall into love with those who love you and so whole heartedly did Yanjun fall for you.
So, he throws away the bottles. He opens his windows and his heart and lives the rest of his life the same way you had before you got sick. It may have taken him a long time but he finally understands the beauty of life. He finally understands how you fell in love with everyone and everything.
Yanjun learns that when you love the way you had loved, you’re bound to get hurt. But when you’re truly in love the way you had truly been, you learn that getting hurt is helps you grow.
And grow is what Yanjun will do.
