All for Nothing
[📘 Content Warning:
This story contains Boys’ Love (BL) themes. Reader discretion is advised. Please read the disclaimers mentioned in the Instagram post.]
The afternoon sun filtered through the grimy garage windows, streaking pale gold over rusted toolboxes and grease-smeared floors.
Outside, the cicadas hummed lazily, their buzz a distant noise behind the tension crackling inside.
Zhan stood near the door, still and silent, his gaze locked on the one person he’d imagined confronting a thousand times.
And now that he was here flesh and blood, just a few feet away… he felt hollow.
He wasn’t smiling.
Neither was Yibo.
Yibo’s face was unreadable, though a flicker of disbelief crossed his eyes when he saw Zhan standing right in front of him.
He turned his head slightly, voice steady but quiet.
“You guys, give us a moment.”
He told the workers around him.
The clang of tools stopped.
One by one, they glanced between the two men and shuffled out, no questions asked.
Silence again.
Heavy. Pressing.
Only the two of them now.
Zhan didn’t move.
Neither did Yibo.
A few feet of space separated them, but it felt like an ocean… six years wide.
Unease flickered in Yibo’s eyes.
His voice was low, almost hesitant.
“How… how did you find this place?”
Zhan looked at him, but didn’t answer.
His gaze drifted across the garage.
At the walls lined with old posters, the partially disassembled motorcycle in the corner, the smell of oil, the faint echo of a fan creaking above.
“Nice setup.”
He said at last.
“Looks like you really did it. Opened your own custom bike garage. Just like you always said you would… the dream you never shut up about.”
Yibo didn’t respond.
His eyes flickered, but he didn’t speak.
Zhan looked back at him.
“Not everyone gets what they want in life. Some of us are left with nothing. But you… you got yours.”
That hit.
Yibo’s jaw tensed, but he didn’t break the silence.
Zhan’s voice stayed calm, but his words grew sharper.
“But tell me, Yibo… why settle here? What are you running from that you had to hide in a village like this? What was so big it made you bury yourself out here, huh?”
Yibo’s eyes lifted.
It was like each breath hurt to take.
He asked quietly.
“Why are you here, Zhan-ge?”
Zhan scoffed.
The sound was sharp, mocking.
“Oh! So… you do remember my name.”
Yibo’s expression didn’t shift.
Neutral, almost cold, but his hands were clenched loosely by his sides.
“I think we already said everything that needed to be—”
“You did!”
Zhan cut him off sharply.
“Not we. You said everything. And ended it. Just like that.”
His gaze was sharp, unflinching.
“I was never there when you decided it, was I?”
Yibo stayed silent.
Zhan stepped forward half a pace, eyes locked on him.
“So this is it? This is the bright future you talked about? Living like a ghost in some garage, tucked away where nobody even knows you’re alive? That’s what you meant when you told me you were doing the ‘right thing’?”
Yibo looked down, then away.
A nerve in his cheek twitched.
But still, no reply.
Zhan’s voice rose, colored with anger now… anger barely veiled with years of ache.
“What happened to that guy who ‘worshipped’ his parents like gods, huh?! The one who dumped me because ‘I wasn’t worth’ a damn compared to them. Who was so terrified of ‘hurting them’ that he broke me instead.”
Yibo flinched, just barely.
Zhan went on, breath uneven.
“Where’s that college topper? That dream-chaser who didn’t wanna follow me, who said he had his own path, his own dreams? Tell me, Yibo… what happened to him?”
A long pause.
Yibo finally spoke, eyes still averted.
He forced calm into his voice, a mask that sounded heartless while burying every shred of the ache clawing at him inside.
“Whatever happened, it doesn’t matter. I’m fine. I’m happy with what I’ve built. And I don’t regret the choice I made.”
Zhan’s eyes narrowed, a sharp laugh escaping with no humor in it.
“How many times, Yibo? How many times did you tell yourself that lie? Once a day? Twice? Enough to almost believe it? Is that how you survived all these years?”
Yibo didn’t respond.
His face stayed like stone, but the silence said enough.
Zhan’s voice dropped, more bitter now.
“You really think I’m that stupid? That I’d believe any of this bullshit?”
Yibo looked up, his gaze tightening, a flicker of tension betraying the mask he held onto.
Zhan stepped closer, his words slow, slicing.
“Or did you think you were so damn smart, huh? That you could fool me for a lifetime and I’d never figure it out?”
Yibo’s face faltered.
His breath caught for just a second.
Zhan stared right into him.
Cold. Unblinking.
Then his voice cut through the air.
“You’re not bound to any promise anymore, Yibo.”
Yibo blinked, thrown off, silence filling the space.
Zhan’s lips parted, the words shaking just a little.
“The man you promised… to protect his son. To stay away so his son could have a ‘safe’ life…”
A beat.
“…He died. Two weeks ago. That man… was my father.”
The room froze.
The silence was suffocating.
Yibo’s eyes widened in disbelief.
His whole body stiffened.
His voice cracked, barely more than a whisper.
“He’s… gone?”
Zhan nodded once.
Coldly.
“So, if you are still pretending to play martyr for his sake, don’t bother anymore.”
Then, as the words settled, Zhan’s eyes dropped and froze.
That scar on Yibo’s left wrist.
For a second, his chest clenched, breath stalling.
His heart felt like it had been crushed in a tight fist.
Yibo noticed the shift, followed his gaze.
And without a word, yanked his sleeve down, hiding it — as if it was never meant to be seen.
Covering the mark the way he must have done a thousand times before.
Zhan’s eyes snapped back up.
Right into his face.
For the first time, Yibo’s mask fell… pain bleeding through, raw and unguarded.
He looked like he’d just been punched in the chest.
His lips parted, but no sound came.
His eyes were glassy, locked on Zhan as though the ground had just been torn out from under him.
And Zhan? He didn’t move.
Didn’t flinch.
He only stood there.
Silent.
Watching.
The silence between them was a blade… everything unforgiven, everything unanswered.
And now, with that scar laid bare, no longer protected by the lie they’d both been living.
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The silence between them felt like a vacuum.
Like even the air between Zhan and Yibo didn’t know how to move anymore.
Zhan took a slow breath, eyes fixed on Yibo, voice low and sharp like a blade dulled by time but still dangerous.
“What’s wrong, Yibo? Nothing to say now? You always had something to say before… where is it now?”
Yibo stood still.
His throat tightened.
Not a single word came out.
Zhan scoffed… bitter, hollow.
“Ba told me everything… just a few days before he passed away. Said he couldn’t carry the guilt anymore.”
His laugh cracked, sharp with pain.
“Funny, isn’t it? Guilt doesn’t fade with time. It festers. It rots. It only grows heavier… year after year.”
Yibo’s jaw clenched.
He could feel it, everything unraveling.
Zhan’s voice lowered, trembling.
“You know what hurt more than my parents betraying me, Yibo?”
His eyes locked on Yibo’s face, unwavering.
“It was you. You chose their side. You became part of that betrayal.”
Yibo’s head shot up, eyes wide.
The blood drained from his face.
Zhan didn’t stop.
His words had waited too long.
“I get it. I get why my parents did what they did. But you… Yibo? You were supposed to be the one who was honest with me. The one who’d stand by me, no matter what.”
His voice cracked, then turned razor-sharp.
“But you looked me dead in the eyes and tore me apart like I was nothing. Tell me, how the hell did you convince yourself that was okay?”
“Zhan-ge…”
Yibo’s voice came out as a whisper.
It barely held shape.
Zhan blinked hard, his lashes trembled with unshed tears.
“Don’t call me that! You lost the right a long time ago… especially after what you did.”
His voice rose, shaking with fury and ache.
“Tell me, Yibo… was my father’s request really that powerful? Powerful enough to erase everything we were? To make my love that meaningless? That easy to throw away? Was their request really worth more than me?”
Zhan’s face twisted, grief and rage colliding.
“Because when you chose to keep that one promise you made to my father… you broke every single promise you ever made to me. How could you ever justify that?”
His voice shook, but the words tore out of him like they’d been buried for years.
“And… did you even stop to think for a second how it would destroy me? How I was supposed to keep breathing when you disappeared overnight? No! you never thought of me at all. You chose them… and you left me to bleed alone.”
Yibo looked away, biting the inside of his cheek.
A single tear slid down before he caught it with the back of his hand… too slow, too exposed.
“TELL ME!!”
Zhan shouted, stepping forward.
His fist curled into Yibo’s collar, yanking him close until their faces were only inches apart.
“Why are you quiet now, huh?! Say something! I want answers, Bo!”
Yibo didn’t resist.
He didn’t lift a hand to stop him.
He just stood there, letting Zhan’s fury crash into him.
He had never seen Zhan like this before.
The man who had always been soft, patient, steady… now burning, breaking, screaming in his face.
And somewhere deep inside, Yibo felt he deserved it.
Every word.
Every shout.
Every tremor in Zhan’s voice was born from the pain he had caused.
If this was the only way Zhan could bleed it out, then Yibo would take it… all of it.
Zhan’s voice cracked mid-yell, emotion spilling over.
“You’re answerable to me! For every scar, every sleepless night, every ache I carried because you decided to push me into this hell. You don’t get to stay silent. Not after everything you left me to drown in.”
His eyes were wild, blazing with rage and heartbreak, and the tears streaking down his cheek showed he couldn’t hold the pain back anymore.
His voice cracked, rising sharper.
“And tell me… how did you do it? How did you stay silent all these years, knowing I’d be bleeding from the wound you left? Did it make you proud, keeping some holy promise while I was the one left to suffer?”
His gaze blurred with fresh tears, the fury in his eyes burning through the haze of grief.
“Was my pain so easy for you to ignore? Was I really worth less than some promise you couldn’t bring yourself to break?”
Yibo kept his gaze locked on the ground, unable to face Zhan’s eyes.
He couldn’t stand to see those tears, not when he knew he was the reason behind every one of them… not just in this moment, but for the last six years.
He didn’t bother stopping his own tears, didn’t even lift a hand to wipe them away.
They burned as they fell, but he let them, because pretending he could hold them back felt like one more lie.
His guilt pressed down on him like chains, heavier with every word Zhan hurled.
Every word Zhan threw cutting deeper as knives carving straight into his chest.
Like a blade, sharp and merciless, slicing straight through his heart.
For so long he had buried it all, silenced himself beneath the weight.
So, he couldn’t answer.
And yet… somehow, in that moment, he found the courage to open his mouth.
“Ge… I…”
Then—
A CRASH!
It was a deafening sound.
Metal slamming against metal, sharp and violent like a car wreck in the echo chamber of the garage.
It echoed through the air, startling the birds from the rafters and hitting hard in every direction.
Both of them turned instinctively.
Then came the scream.
“Sir! Sir! Your son! please, come fast!”
The security guard’s voice cracked in panic, feet pounding as he ran toward them.
Zhan froze.
His body locked.
His eyes widened, unblinking, as if the world had suddenly stopped moving.
He turned, but the words didn’t sink in at first.
For a heartbeat, he just stared.
Blank, hollow.
Then it hit.
Like a punch straight to the chest.
He had left Zeyu in the car… sleeping.
And in the chaos of everything, he had completely forgotten.
“My Zeyu…!”
He gasped, the name ripped out of him, raw and broken.
“Oh my god… my son!”
Yibo’s head snapped up.
His eyes widened, locking on Zhan, frozen.
For a second, he couldn’t breathe… the word hit him harder than Zhan’s grip ever had.
Zhan’s voice shattered as he bolted forward, panic ripping him apart.
“No, no, no—please, no, oh God!”
His face twisted in terror as he shoved past Yibo, sprinting toward the garage lot.
He bolted like gravity itself had let go, feet hammering against concrete, his breath ragged and tearing through his chest.
His heart felt like it had detached from his body and sprinted ahead.
Yibo staggered back, the blood draining from his face.
Son?
His mind reeled, disbelieving, as if he’d misheard.
But Zhan’s voice, shattered and desperate… left no space for denial.
His jaw clenched.
His hands shook.
A high, shrill ringing filled his ears.
“Zhan-ge’s… son?!”
The realization slammed into him like a blow to the gut.
His stomach churned, throat closing.
But Zhan’s scream tore through the air again, jolted him back.
And then Yibo was moving.
Running.
His chest burned, but he didn’t stop.
He wasn’t ready for any of this.
But ready or not… he was running straight into it.
[To be continued…]
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Author’s Note:
Heyyy, you made it to the end of the chapter! 😊
Hope you enjoyed it — and if you did, please don’t forget to like & comment on my Insta post. 💖
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 