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San didn’t live all that time to lose Wee to the scum of the earth, not after he had found him…
He was under the assumption that family would always come first for people that he was surrounded by good people who he had managed to raise well…
He was wrong, his long years didn’t teach him anything if a person like Suchat and Chan could invade his house and almost kill Wee.
Wee… Wee who came to him like an oasis in the desert and saved him from the curse of the stone, his luck protecting him in every aspect.
Wee who he found in a pool of his own blood…
He could barely live with that scene playing in his head after it had happened to Wad, and now he was seeing it again happen to Wee…
Cruised… You are Cruised…
He didn’t intend to Kill Suchat or Chan, didn’t want anything to do with them but to let them know that he had been onto them since the very first day, that he was not a fool…
Of course, the stone was fake, of course, the box was trackable… He wouldn’t have had it any other way, Tao wouldn’t have had it any other way…
Leaving Wee in the care of the rest of the family felt like someone was ripping his heart out of his chest, sure medicine had developed in the long years he had lived, but death was still death, and the best doctors in the world wouldn’t be able to prolong anyone’s life if their death loomed over…
Cruised… You are Cruised… Everyone you love will die because of you…
Once he had poured his anger over Chan, and his men, making sure that they couldn’t hurt him any further, he practically ran back to the hospital…
“He is safe… No Organ was damaged, He woke up for a short time but he fell asleep again…”
Ju had assured him once she had seen him come into her vision field, she might be his youngest descendant, but she seemed to be the person who understood him the most.
He had felt real fear he hadn’t felt for decades, real fear that he would lose again… he would be condemned again.
There wasn’t another 100 years for him in the cards, he had one shot to be saved or he would die a painful death and that was that.
He sat next to Wee, He needed his rest, needed time to heal and recover from the shock to his body and the blood he had lost.
The more San looked at his sleeping form, the more he berated himself for letting things get this far, it had always been his law, that he would face anything as long as it protected his family, and Wee - whether he liked it or not - was his family by wedlock.
Tao hadn’t expressed anger at him, he had expected an attempt on the stone, and San’s life, it wasn’t the first time, and probably won’t be the last until the stone is crushed and the entire matter is resolved, but then again Wee didn’t need to get hurt for San to get the message…
If anything had happened to Wee… and Wee was truly his Wad, then it would have been like San signing his death certificate with red ink…
He shook his head, clearing his jumbled thoughts, before he saw Ju standing by the door.
“Maybe you should go home, Rest and Change? It wouldn’t do anyone any good if the curse attacked you here…”
If the curse attacked him he would have had it coming, but he refrained from telling Ju as much.
“I think I should stay with him, the best thing I could do to the curse would be staying close to him anyway…”
Tao nodded, he didn’t look phased, but he was sure annoyed and upset, his ancestors had warned him against all of that, but warnings were one thing, and seeing all of that unfold was another…
and Tao was young… he was really young to have seen much or even done more than read what happened when the curse took control of San’s fate.
Ju and the others bid him goodnight before they left him to sit with Wee…
He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t do anything but sit next to him till the crack of dawn to remind himself that all was not lost, that the boy was alive, and would recover…
and then by the time the goddess birthday would come rolling around, all of this would be over, and Wee would be safely away from him.
—
In the morning, San allowed himself the reprieve of going back to the house to change, clean up, and eat before he went back to keep a silent vigil over Wee…
Ju had told him that she could go instead of him, but he berated her, telling her she should keep track of her studies more and more…
She smirked and said nothing, giving him a look that meant that all of what he was doing wasn’t going to fool her…
He was a bad liar… He knew it…
—
When Wee cracked his eyes open, something inside San eased, and peace came to him.
and Wee had proved San wrong again when he asked if he managed to get the stone back or not, asking if San was alright and they were safe or not…
“They cannot hurt you anymore… Rest Assured…”
He sagged in relief before flinching, hand coming to his side because he moved wrong and must have pulled on his stitches, and San almost winced for his pain.
San helped him elevate the bed, before sitting next to him, hand reaching to get the box of fruits he had - personally - put together…
When Wee reached for a piece, no doubt hungry and in need of good nutrition to recover, San shooed him away.
“It’s ok, I will do it…”
The smile that decorated Wee’s face, could have challenged the sun with the way it was shown.
—
San could have believed anything except coming face to face with this man…
Trai, The man Wad’s family had tried to force her to marry… and the man who killed Wad…
Except that he was now a doctor… Doctor Third, and not only was he back to taunt him, but he had also been Wee’s senior… and not only a senior, a close one, from the way Wee’s face lit up when he saw him…
San wasn’t happy about this… He was in for his life… and the last time that man appeared, his life and Wad’s life got tangled…
He never won against Trai… and from the look of it, He might not win against Third.
The goddess sure was playing a cruel joke on him…
—
Third was everything San wasn’t… and he was more than aware of that…
He was gentle with Wee, took really good care of him, knew him inside out, could see beyond his shortcomings…
and San felt the sting of jealousy and fear every time he saw him, alarms going in his head…
He lost to him before… There was no guarantee that it wouldn’t happen again…
He tried to talk to Wee, warn him, scare him to remain away from Third, but their history was against San… because Wee knew Third, he had been good to Wee before and was good to Wee now…
Unlike San, who barely stood the sight of Wee till he was faced with the possibility that he could die because of him.
and the nightmares started, not because Wee wasn’t there to protect him, but because San’s mind was cruel, and the curse he was under was even crueler…
He had seen Wee die instead of Ms. Wad over and over again, always on the hand of Third, and always in the same way, instead of San…
He felt like he was going to tear at the seams from the pressure of it all…
“Would you like my advise, Great-Grandpa?”
Ju asked him, and from the look of it, she intended to give it to him eitherways.
“What?”
“You have grown inattentive…”
San stared at Ju blankly for a bit, before she elaborated.
“you thought you would get Ms. Wad back on a silver platter, it didn’t cross your mind that even if she came with the same face, she wouldn’t remember who you were, and you would need to woo her in order for her to fall for you again… you have lost your touch, Great-Grandpa…”
He looked at her awe strack for a second before rushing out of the room.
She was right, She was definitly right…
He had grown so accustomed to the looking for Ms. Wad over the years that the mere idea of what to do when he would find her, fell from his head.
and Even if he had gotten his way, she wouldn’t have remembered him, but he never thought of that, he was sure that the goddess would bless him with her grace, forgetting that he had already had his mircle, and everything thing since had been up to him.
and now winning Wee… or losing him was up to him…
—
bearing his heart and soul to the closed door of Wee’s room, took every ounce of sincerity and emotions San had…
only for Wee to not be in the room… He had been talking to a door…
He wanted to scream and wail in desperation, He was losing so hard, and he was running out of options, running out of things to do or say…
and Third wasn’t swaying away from Wee, He couldn’t be scared off or fought off him, he was adamnt on getting him back.
Time’s tendncy to repeat itself was driving San crazy… crazy enough that he was willing to drive his point home with a punch hadn’t Wee stopped him.
“I am everything he is not, aren’t I?” San said it bitterly
“No, but I am everything you didn’t need, I am messy, lowlife, a criminal… you said so yourself…”
San recoiled, He had said all those things a way to defy his destiny, as a way to state how angry he was at the way things were, but Wee had proved to be anything but that…
and San was too egoistic to admit he was wrong…
—
“You need a plan, this is not going to work without a plan…” Ju announced one day, taking pity on his sorry excuse of a soul…
Her plan was rather simple, very logical, all San had to do was to get over himself and treat San the way he knew how to treat Ms. Wad…
and it worked… like magic… like pure magic…
Love flowed and he could see Wee bloosming, San himself was the happier he had ever been, more at peace than he ever imagined he would be.
He couldn’t imagine a life without Wee, didn’t remember what life without Wee was like…
Wee was his sun… and San was simply the sunflower…
—
When Tao told San that he will track Ms. Wad’s family line, San just shook his head.
He didn’t feel the need to anymore, He was safely in love with Wee, and everything was in place like one of those puzzles Rat loved, completeing a beautifl image in the end.
“Are you sure? it wouldn’t hurt to try anyway…”
San was sure, he wasn’t sure of anything in his long life as he was sure of that.
Tao didn’t look particularly happy or sad about that revaluation… He looked puzzled.
“If this was a test… I don’t think it’s over, P’San…”
San looked at Tao but Tao didn’t elaborate…
This couldn’t be a test, San had been tested enough, his sincerity and love was questioned for enough time.
He went to pray to the goddess, in part in thanks, and in part because he had grown worried from what Tao said…
When he looked up from his folded hands in prayers, the tears on the goddess face send chills down his spian, he tried not to bounder on it, thinking it was a leaking duck or something that he would need to send someone to fix… but the chill in his heart didn’t fade… it only grew worse…
When he moved from his place to leave the temple… the person that was standing there behind the door could have been a thread of his wildest dreams…
and that person couldn’t be there, couldn’t exist, shouldn’t exist now that he had found a person who he loved, a person who would be able to ward the curse and end his 100 years of suffering.
It was Ms. Wad… in the flesh, before his own eyes.
If this was another test, then San was pretty sure he was going to fail…
The End ?