The Last Promise
[📘 Content Warning:
This story contains Boys’ Love (BL) themes. Reader discretion is advised. Please read the disclaimers mentioned in the Instagram post.]
The morning sunlight filtered softly through the sheer curtains.
The gentle clink of teacups in the kitchen had long faded as breakfast wrapped up, leaving behind the comforting scent of jasmine tea and fried scallion pancakes that still lingered in the air.
Zhan sat on the couch in the living room, legs crossed, one hand loosely holding the newspaper while the other absentmindedly reached for his cooling tea.
His black-rimmed glasses rested on the bridge of his nose, and a slight furrow had formed between his brows as he scanned the headlines.
Across the room, Zeyu darted around with his red toy car in hand.
His socked feet barely making a sound as he zoomed his miniature vehicle along the edges of the coffee table, giggling at his own made-up sound effects.
Yue had taken a few days off work since Zhan was home.
After feeding breakfast to Zeyu, she sat in the living room, scrolling through her phone.
The house was quiet again, save for the occasional thump of a toy hitting a wall and Zeyu’s bright laughter.
From the hallway, Liu Fang appeared, wiping her hands on a towel.
Her steps were slower than usual, and her face, though still graceful, carried the weight of worry and sleepless nights.
She came to a stop near the couch, looked at Zhan, and said quietly.
“Zhan, Ba is calling you. Come.”
Zhan lowered the newspaper slightly, his gaze drifting from the print to her tired face.
Without a word, he folded the paper neatly and set it on the coffee table.
He gave a slight nod and rose from the couch.
Zeyu looked up mid-run.
“Baba, where you going?”
“Just to see your Grandpa.”
Zhan said with a small smile.
Zeyu nodded enthusiastically and went back to crashing his car into a table leg.
Zhan followed his mother down the hallway.
The house still smelled like memory… wood polish, old books, and a faint trace of his father’s cologne.
Each step toward that room made his heart beat just a little heavier.
Inside, the curtains were drawn halfway, letting in a pale light that fell across the bed.
Xiao Guoqiang lay propped against a pile of pillows, thinner than before, wrapped in a blanket, eyes closed in rest.
The hum of the oxygen concentrator in the corner filled the silence, low and steady.
Zhan stepped in, hesitating only for a moment before pulling the chair closer to the bedside.
Yue followed, stopping at the bedroom doorway, her gaze fixed quietly on the scene inside.
Just as Zhan sat down, the soft patter of feet echoed behind him.
“Baba…”
Zeyu’s voice rang out, and the boy ran into the room, clutching his toy car.
Without asking, he climbed onto Zhan’s lap, curling against his chest like he always did when he wanted to be close.
Zhan instinctively wrapped one arm around him, anchoring him with a steady warmth.
The boy wriggled until he was comfortable, then continued rolling the toy gently on Zhan’s arm.
On the bed, Xiao Guoqiang stirred.
His eyes fluttered open slowly, pupils adjusting to the light, and then they landed on Zhan.
Then on the child in his arms.
Liu Fang sat down quietly on the other side of the bed and touched her husband’s arm gently.
“Zhan’s here.”
Zhan leaned forward a little.
“Ba… what is it? Ma said you wanted to talk about something.”
There was a long pause.
Xiao Guoqiang’s eyes didn’t move from his son’s face.
He gave a slow nod, then glanced at Liu Fang.
She returned it, a small, urging tilt of her head that seemed to tell him, Go on.
His eyes shifted back to Zhan.
Then his cracked lips parted, voice raspy and frail but still clear enough to hear.
“That boy…”
He said, his gaze drifting just slightly.
“…Yibo.”
Zhan’s breath caught.
It was so unexpected, the name landing in the quiet room like the echo of a storm long past.
That name… still so heavy, so full of everything Zhan hadn’t touched in six years.
His fingers tensed slightly around Zeyu’s side.
Zeyu tilted his head back, looking up at his father.
His blue eyes searching Zhan’s face.
As if the name stirred a feeling, something unspoken that only he and Zhan shared.
Zhan met his gaze.
Then he gently smoothed a hand over Zeyu’s soft hair and said with a small smile.
“Zeyu…”
He said softly.
“Why don’t you go outside and play a little, hmm? Baba needs to talk to Grandpa alone for a bit.”
The child blinked, then nodded obediently.
He climbed off Zhan’s lap, clutching his toy car in one hand.
“Okay…”
He chirped, then ran off, his little feet thumping across the floorboards, his presence leaving behind a lightness in the room.
Zhan looked back to the bed.
Xiao Guoqiang was still watching him.
He swallowed hard and asked, voice quieter now,
“What about him, Ba?”
Xiao Guoqiang’s lips parted, but no words came.
His brows tightened faintly, as though searching for the right place to begin.
His chest rose with shallow breaths, rattling faintly in the quiet room.
Zhan waited, unmoving.
He didn’t rush him.
He just sat there, watching the face that had once been so stern, now fragile like old paper.
Finally, Xiao Guoqiang whispered.
“All these six years… so many times I wanted to tell you. Even your mother did… but we kept quiet.”
He paused, his gaze drifting to the far wall, something like shame flickering across his face.
“We were afraid… and we carried the guilt too.”
He added, voice brittle.
Zhan’s pulse quickened.
He tried to keep his face composed, but something restless stirred in his chest.
“Afraid?”
He asked softly, brows drawing in.
“Afraid of what, Ba?”
His father’s trembling fingers reached across the blanket.
Zhan instinctively leaned forward and took his hand… weathered, dry, bones jutting under loose skin.
“Ba…”
Zhan murmured.
“Please… tell me what is it.”
But Xiao Guoqiang didn’t answer.
His grip only tightened faintly around Zhan’s, lips quivering as if the words were trapped somewhere he couldn’t reach.
Liu Fang, who’d been quiet all this time, finally spoke.
Her voice was soft, but firm, like someone carrying a truth that had weighed on her for far too long.
“I’ll tell you, Zhan.”
She said.
Zhan looked up at her, eyes narrowing slightly in confusion.
Her face was drawn, lips pressed into a thin line.
She slowly inhaled.
“The day you came to us and said you wanted to take Yibo with you.”
Zhan nodded.
“Yes. I remember that.”
Liu Fang looked away for a second, collecting herself.
“Then you left for your two-day training program in Shanghai. And while you were gone…”
She looked away briefly.
“Your Baba and I went to meet Yibo.”
Zhan’s head snapped back to Xiao Guoqiang.
“What?!”
He asked, his voice low but edged with disbelief.
“You met Yibo? But why?”
The old man didn’t answer right away, but his eyes tearing up now.
Zhan looked at his mother once, then back at him.
He leaned closer, a whisper of disbelief in his tone.
“Ba…”
And then… Xiao Guoqiang’s mind drifted.
The memory played in Xiao Guoqiang’s mind as clearly as if it had happened yesterday.
[Flashback ]
Yibo was crouched near the open side of the garage, sleeves rolled up, a wrench in one hand as he tightened the bolts on a motorbike’s rear wheel.
The faint scent of motor oil and metal hung in the air, mixed with the warm, dusty smell of the afternoon.
From the corner of his eye, he caught movement.
A scooter slowing to a stop in near the garage.
He looked up just in time to see Liu Fang swing one leg over and step down, smoothing the front of her blouse, while Xiao Guoqiang parked the scooter neatly under the shade of the old banyan tree beside the garage.
The corners of Yibo’s mouth lifted instantly.
He set the wrench aside, grabbed a rag to wipe the grease from his hands, and walked over to where they stood waiting.
His tone lifted, cheerful and respectful, as he called out.
“Uncle, Auntie! Hello! It’s so good to see you. What a surprise. I didn’t expect both of you here.”
He sounded genuinely happy.
Almost honored.
They both returned his smile, but there was something faintly off in their expressions.
A shadow in their eyes that didn’t match the warmth of their lips.
Xiao Guoqiang stepped forward slightly, his voice calm but carrying a quiet weight.
“We came to see you, Yibo.”
Yibo glanced up.
“Of course, Uncle. Is everything alright? Zhan-ge isn’t here… so if there’s something you need, you can tell me.”
“All’s fine, Yibo.”
Xiao Guoqiang said, though his pause betrayed him.
“We just wanted to talk to you.”
He hesitated, searching for the right place to begin, then finally spoke.
“Zhan told us… that he wants to take you with him. To the Netherlands.”
“Yes.”
Yibo answered without a moment’s doubt.
“He told me. I’m… I’m working on arranging the finances so it doesn’t burden Zhan-ge. I’ve got some savings, and I’m applying for a student grant. I just need a little more time.”
Xiao Guoqiang didn’t answer right away.
A brief pause settled between them, heavy enough to become uncomfortable.
Then, slowly he spoke, glancing at Liu Fang once.
“Yibo… we have a request.”
Yibo straightened slightly, attentive.
“Sure, Uncle. Please tell me.”
And Xiao Guoqiang, with a heaviness he hadn’t known he was capable of, said.
“We want you to back off from going with him.”
Yibo’s smile faltered, fingers tightened around the rag in his hands.
There was no reply.
Only a long silence, the kind that hangs in the air when something is shattering inside.
His brows pulled together, eyes flicking up in disbelief.
“…What?”
Xiao Guoqiang’s voice was barely a whisper as he continued, the tremor in his words betraying the pain beneath.
“Zhan is not going to listen to us… but he will listen to you.”
Yibo remained silent, his gaze fixed on Xiao Guoqiang.
The weight of those words hung heavy in the air.
Xiao Guoqiang took a shaky breath, then went on.
“Look, Yibo… we can understand what you two feel for each other. But accepting it… accepting this, is an entirely different thing. There’s a big difference between understanding and accepting.”
His voice cracked slightly as he spoke.
“His mother and I… we can’t fight the world for you guys. We’re just a small middle-class family, living by society’s rules and restrictions. We have to answer to many people.”
There was a long pause.
Yibo wanted to speak, to protest, but the words caught in his throat.
The silence stretched like a thick, suffocating fog.
Xiao Guoqiang’s voice grew heavier, edged with sorrow and warning.
“You two are simply wasting your lives. You know there’s no future for you together. And I don’t want to see my son’s life fall apart. I don’t want you to be the reason.”
Finally, after a breath that seemed to carry the weight of the world, Yibo found his voice, trembling but steady.
Holding back the tears that were almost there.
“What are you trying to say, Uncle?”
Xiao Guoqiang hesitated, the words weighing down on him as if he carried a burden too large to bear.
Then, with a heavy sigh, he said.
“Yibo, let him go. Let him live his life. Don’t be the cause of his ruin. He has a bright future ahead. And so do you. Once he moves to that new place… he’ll forget you. Slowly, he’ll move on.”
The silence that followed was heavy.
Tears slipped down Yibo’s cheeks as he closed his eyes against the ache inside.
Liu Fang noticed, her own heart tightening, the sadness in his expression pulling at something deep within her.
Xiao Guoqiang’s voice softened but remained firm.
“You can have a good life, too. Like your father said… once you have a family, you’ll forget all this. And when he knows you and Zhan are no longer seeing each other, he’ll come around. Things at your home will settle again.”
A pause, then the hardest words.
“If you truly love Zhan, you shouldn’t be the cause of his downfall. We cannot accept your relationship, my boy… not when we have to answer to so many.”
Yibo’s breath caught, his eyes widening slightly, as if the words had hit somewhere deep.
Liu Fang spoke next, her voice low, each word weighed down by sorrow.
“Yibo, think about Yue. If you two start living together, people will talk, and maybe no good family will agree to marry her. Her life and future could be ruined. So, we’re both begging you, Yibo… for our son’s life, for our daughter’s life.”
Xiao Guoqiang’s voice cracked, and then, to Yibo’s shock, he said quietly.
“And if both our children’s lives are ruined in front of us… we won’t be able to go on living, Yibo. We couldn’t bear to watch that happen.”
His gaze dropped, shame and desperation clouding his face.
“Please leave our Zhan. Let him go and have a life.”
His voice shook, eyes pleading, as though each word was being pulled from somewhere deep and painful.
“If you want… I’m ready to fall at your feet, Yibo.”
Before the words had even settled in the air, the old man’s frail body pitched forward, hands reaching down toward Yibo’s feet with trembling resolve.
A jolt of panic shot through Yibo.
Utterly stunned, he lunged forward, gripping Xiao Guoqiang’s shoulders hard, stopping him before his trembling hands could reach Yibo’s feet.
“No! uncle, please… no! what are you doing?”
His voice broke louder now, raw with disbelief, the tremor in it betraying just how much the sight was unraveling him.
Both Xiao Guoqiang and Liu Fang were weeping.
Xiao Guoqiang’s voice broke again as he said.
“Please, Yibo… if you want to call us selfish, say it. But please… spare our children’s lives. Please.”
Yibo gripped the rag in his hands so tightly his knuckles turned white, his chest aching as if something inside had been torn apart.
They were asking him to give up the one person who was his life, his reason, his home.
For a moment, the air refused to enter his lungs.
He wiped at the tears streaking his face, swallowing the pain that burned in his throat, and forced his voice to stay steady.
“Uncle… I’d rather die than bring ruin to Zhan-ge. No matter what it costs me, I won’t let anyone say I’ve harmed him.”
His voice wavered, and he looked down, blinking hard as if willing the tears to stay back.
“I’ve loved him more than my own life, Uncle. I still do. But if you think, letting go is what keeps him safe, then I’ll do it. You have my word. Even if it breaks me, I’ll make sure nothing I do ever casts a shadow on him.”
A pause and then with a bitter smile he said.
“But, you’re asking me to do the hardest thing I’ll ever do in my life… and I’ll still do it, to make sure both your children and their future are safe… just as you believe, Uncle.”
His mouth curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile, his eyes dull with the weight of it.
“Don’t worry. You won’t even have to remember I was ever a part of Zhan-ge’s life.”
Xiao Guoqiang’s felt no relief.
His chest felt heavy with the weight of what he was asking Yibo to do.
Beside him, Liu Fang wiped at her tears, the sting of guilt already settling deep in her chest.
“Please, Yibo… don’t hate us. I know we’re asking for something no one should have to give. But… try to understand our situation. We’ll owe you for the rest of our lives.”
Yibo let out a shaky breath, his eyes fixed on the ground.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low, almost hoarse.
“I don’t hate you, Auntie… but I wish you understood what you’re taking from me.”
Xiao Guoqiang’s voice softened to a whisper.
“Please… don’t ever tell Zhan we had this conversation. Please.”
“I promise.”
Yibo said quietly.
The silence that followed was heavy, steeped in the shared sadness of knowing how deeply this would wound both Yibo and Zhan… and in the ache Zhan’s parents carried for asking something that pained them as much as it would hurt him.
Before turning to leave, Yibo looked at both of them and tried to smile, but it faltered.
He wasn’t angry… he was utterly devastated and heart broken.
Bowing slightly to them, he took a step back, then with heavy deliberate steps, walked away.
Liu Fang watched him go, her chest tightening.
“Guoqiang, did we do the right thing?”
She asked softly.
Xiao Guoqiang’s gaze stayed fixed on Yibo’s retreating figure.
“I don’t know, Liu… probably not.”
He murmured, his voice fraying at the edges, shoulders heavy as if carrying the weight of both boys’ lives.
“But maybe this is the only way we know how to protect them… even if it’s wrong.”
His gaze stayed on the empty path, eyes dark with regret.
“And maybe… if the truth ever reaches him, Zhan will forgive us. Though I’m not sure we’d deserve it.”
[Present]
As Liu Fang finished the story, wiping her tears, the room seemed to grow colder.
Xiao Guoqiang’s gaze was dull, as if weighed down by years of regret.
Zhan sat frozen, his mind reeling but unable to form words.
The truth pressed down on his chest like a crushing weight, every word from moments ago still echoing in his ears.
Tears blurred his vision, the room tilting as if the floor had shifted beneath him.
His eyes stayed fixed on his parents in utter disbelief, as if he were staring at two strangers.
Because the parents he thought he knew would never have done what he had just heard.
His breath caught in his throat, tight and shallow, and his stomach twisted with a sick, hollow ache.
Slowly, his fingers loosened from the tight hold he’d had on his father’s hand.
They dropped to his lap, trembling.
Yue stood shocked, eyes wide and brimming with tears… hearing this for the first time herself, after six years of silence from their parents.
The air was thick with a grief none of them could name, punctuated only by the faint sounds of Zeyu playing quietly in the other room, unaware of the storm tearing through the three of them.
And somewhere in that silence, Zhan felt something inside him shift.
A quiet, dangerous certainty that nothing would ever be the same again.
[To be continued…]
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Author’s Note:
Heyyy, you made it to the end of the chapter! 😊
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Think of it as your way of telling me, “Hey, I’m here, and I loved it!” — it means the world to me and truly keeps me inspired to write more for you! ✨
The Red Ribbon 