DIFFERENT WORLD

Chapter 5: HOPE

Chapter
V
Hope

***

"Zhang Qi Ling, are you free? We need to talk."

Zhang Qi Ling was startled out of his thought. He nearly jumped over the desk and attacked his superior and had he not been trying to get his body under control, he would have.

"I'm just trying to accommodate your needs," Zhang Rishan continued, undeterred by Zhang Qi Ling's movement. "Have a seat."

Zhang Qi Ling didn't answer and didn't move to sit. Zhang Rishan shook his head. "I'm not going to let my feelings be hurt by your little attitude."

Black eyes widened and Zhang Qi Ling's fingernails bit into his palms. "What is it?"

"Sit." This time it wasn't an invitation. And so, self-preservation trumping embarrassed defiance, Zhang Qi Ling sat. "I checked on your case. I thought you would like to know that the report on Wu Xie has been passed Up five times from the moment that it left my office."

Zhang Qi Ling blinked. Five times? That was nearly to...

"I don't remember the last time a report actually made it to the Higher Up, but I think we might have a winner on our hands." Zhang Rishan said.

"Someone must know," Zhang Qi Ling began slowly. "Someone hand had to have prevented it that day because, just now, he didn't fight... I could have collected him."

"You tried?" Zhang Rishan asked and his eyes narrowed.

"Wu Xie thinks it was fun. Laughs every time he touches me and his heart skips a beat and his lungs freeze. He... just giggles."

"But you can't actually collect him?" Zhang Rishan asked, fingers forming a steeple in front of his face.

Zhang Qi Ling shook his head. "That was the strange thing. I think I could. I think he would let me."

"Let... souls don't 'let'. It's their time and we take them. They don't pick and choose."

"En." Zhang Qi Ling nodded, unwilling to argue something neither of them had an answer to.

"Stop trying. I can't imagine the amount of paperwork I would... or I mean, how much trouble you would be in if you took a soul without permission. There's already one report with your name drifting Up, let's not have another."

"Okay," Zhang Qi Ling said and stood. He turned toward the door, gripping the handle before looking back over his shoulder. "Please, don't startle me again."

Zhang Rishan made a non-committal noise not looking over him.

***

Zhang Qi Ling still visited Wu Xie during his down time but he tried to keep his visits to the nighttime hours, when hopefully the little boy would be asleep or at least when he was alone. He never tried to touch Wu Xie again, but allowed the little boy to do it to his heart's content. Wu Xie would hold on as long as he could and then release Zhang Qi Ling's fingers with a giggle and a smile.

Zhang Qi Ling tried not to notice when the intervals got longer and longer. If it were an issue, he would have been called back to Zhang Rishan's office and so, for the time being, he would just assume it was still Their problem.

Wu Xie grew by leaps and bounds and Zhang Qi Ling was present for his first step to his first day of kindergarten and so many things in between. He watched Wu Xie on his first play date with a little girl and made faces with the grimacing child when the little girl confessed her undying love. He sat by Wu Xie's bed when he came down with the flu and told him everything would be okay when Wu Yi Qiong cried in his room at night.

So many nights Zhang Qi Ling would watch the little boy sleep peacefully and try to come up with a plausible theory for why Wu Xie had been allowed to live and how. His hand would ghost over Wu Xie's forehead, tickling the soft dark brown hairs, and Wu Xie's breath would catch.

He had no answer, but in the dark of the night, when no one could see him, he hoped it was for him.

***
To be continued...