✅The Ocean As My Witness (Zhanyi) (Completed)

2. The ocean at night

"It's zhan. Please don't address me so formally and about lunch I am not going"

"Why?"

"Because it feels good here...with you" they stared in each other's eyes, for eyes too felt like a deep ocean filled with feelings, extending into thousand miles to travel and explore.

Both didn't realise when the air of awkwardness between them filtered to comfortablility and buoyancy.

"Yibo don't you miss your family?"

"......" Zhan peered at the lost figure beside him. Yibo seemed to be out of words and a muddled expression flashed on his flawless face, for how he struggled and suppressed all the feelings inside his dead heart and now when it was touched again to bleed, a life was blowed into it making him difficult to inhale and ingest the reality.

"This is my family Mr. xiao. Here, this ship is my mother and these vast flowing grounds are my home."

"Can't you call me Zhan once? Eh..but yibo your Mom must be jealous of this ship then haha.." he tried to lighten the mood for he thought that latter must be missing his home that's why he turned all gloomy when asked about his loved ones.

"She won't! If she even knows that I exist somewhere..." Zhan didn't ask anything anymore as it became so obvious that the sensitive topic must be related to his painful past.

Suddenly Zhan noticed that another passing ship was flashing lights towards them which was responded by flashes from their side too. He wanted to ask about it but decided not to. Yibo sensed his hesitation and spoke "The fellow ships are greeting each other before sailing off alone in the darkness again because there's only this signal and a silent talk, and once they part they would never see each other again."

"Ohh" Zhan felt an inexpressible and unknown pain inside him when he heard yibo's words. 'Only a look and would never see each other again' . The words ringed in his head like a loop song again and again. He didn't want their brief, intense moment to end ever so he tried..

Yibo would you like to join me for dinner later?" Zhan pleaded by showing a soft expression, with a hope that younger don't turn his offer down.

"I need to go now. It's better if we don't see each other again." Even after denying and trying thousand times, yibo can't ignore the fact that their was something that bloomed between the two, though Zhan was totally opposite to him but doesn't opposite attract each other? But if he neglect and overlook his throbbing heart then will he be able to get away from the charm other was caging him into? Maybe yes. But isn't it too fast to trust and expect? Does it really starts like this? But what about the end then? Can someone like him who knows nothing except salty waters and a hunk of metal could also be cherished by someone who doesn't belongs to his world..

Yibo was fast to turn around and seal the impact the other had on him, but his movements halted abruptly when his hands were grabbed from the back.

"Please"

"Please zhan why are you doing this?" His rejection too brought smile on older's thin lips, for how it felt more like a pleading, begging him to leave him alone and not to enter his heart. But it was too late for him to let go... so he too begged this time with a whisper which was accompanied by a shaky breath.

"It's my birthday yibo" Zhan interwined his fingers with that of yibo's, while the younger was still facing his back to him. Yibo found his eyes closed as a tingling feeling rose and ran across his whole self.

"Your hands are so rough yet they are so soft, fitting right in my fingers" Zhan approached him and uttered these words in yibo's ear.

Sam who was standing quite far from Zhan, with his eyes on his master's each and every unexpected movements, silently clenched his pants tightly with his trembling fingers. This zhan was so new to him, so warm, so desperate to please someone, touching someone softly like the other one was so fragile. He moved his eyes towards the ground and gulped repeatedly, like he was gulping the tears and pain that would forever remain unshed and unseen.

"Happy birthday zhan" yibo with his hands still between Zhan's slender fingers said with a small smile. Zhan's heart felt so warm and nice, he pulled the captain towards him and pleaded to have a dinner date with him again. Yibo nodded and zhan let his hand go. Soon ziyi too joined them along with her girlfriend, with how touchy and flirty ziyi was behaving, it felt like they were in a romantic relationship which made Sophie red in anger. Zhan was sharp to notice it, so he swiftly got out from ziyi's arms and clutched yibo's hands to guide them towards his private dinner chamber.

They were unaware of someone who followed them since the very start, but punched the nearby wall in frustration and got lost into the dark shades inside the ship again.

The huge vessel silently made its way through the lonely waters, shining the surrounding darkness with its shimmering lights, concious but unaffected of all the complacities and conspiracies taking place among the humans.