-59- One year

A/N: Let's do a time jump. I don't want to stretch this story endlessly and it's been a lot longer than planned without really making any progress. And since I want to concentrate on writing a new story in the near future, I should probably start slowly to start the beginning for the end right here. I will try to finish this story until Sunday, August 23, 2020, if possible even earlier.

Since one year Zhan and Yibo have a mostly harmonious and very loving relationship. It wasn't always easy for them and once it even looked like their relationship would end. But let's go through what happened step by step.

First, Zhan's grandmother died only two days after his last visit to her. She never woke up again. Zhan's wish to see her soul and say goodbye to her did not come true. And although he was prepared for her death, he was hit hard when his parents called him and told him that she was dead. But thanks to Yibo, who was a great help to him, he was able to cope with his grandmother's death quickly.

Zhan started working again and his boss gave him his old column back. He drove from appointment to appointment to do interviews and was often very late at home. When he had finished work early, he went on a search for lost souls together with Yu Bin. Often he forgot the time and rarely came home before 9 pm or 10 pm.

Yibo and Lian opened their office as planned and did not have to wait long for families, children and teenagers seeking help. They soon noticed that their office hours were not sufficient and so they had to adjust them again. Even if this was still not enough and they were still working overtime.

And even though Yibo was in the office every day from 7 am to 6 pm and worked, he still drove to the nursing home every day after work to visit his mother, where he stayed until 9:30 pm. Although the visiting hours were only until 7 pm, he and Hai Kuan were always allowed to stay longer. This was of great use to both of them, because they not only got to know their mother, but also managed to reconcile with her and even forgive her.

But with all this, the two ignored how little time was left for their relationship, as they didn't even use the weekends for each other and each took care of his own business. And so two months after the opening of Yibo and Lian's office, a big fight between Zhan and Yibo started.

Both accused each other of not taking their relationship seriously enough and not being interested in spending time together. The quarrel went on for days and even weeks and even led to Zhan leaving the shared apartment and moving to Yu Bin's apartment for some time after the latter looked for his own apartment.

In the end, it was Zhan's parents who brought the two of them together and forced them to talk. Everyone had the word and everyone was allowed to say what disturbed them about each other. And finally they had to realize that they were both right and wrong at the same time.

Zhan's parents told Zhan to stop shifting his interviews to the evening if possible and to stop searching for lost souls every day. They reminded Yibo why there are office hours and that he should stick to them. Because often he worked much longer than the office hours were. And they also told him that if he wanted to spend time with Zhan, he could no longer be at his mother's nursing home every day until late at night, but had to go home earlier.

After more than four weeks of arguing and silence, the two talked, thanks to Zhan's parents, and moved back in together. And because this fight was a lesson to both of them and they didn't want to go through something like this again, they talked to each other immediately if there was anything that disturbed them. And they also tried to still make time for each other every evening. From then on, the weekends belonged to them, only to them. This fight was their biggest and their worst, but also their last.

Four months later, Wang Sanya finally died of cancer. For Yibo and Hai Kuan this was a difficult time, because both had just met their mother and would have liked to spend more time with her.

Yanli gave birth to a little daughter shortly after the death of Wang Sanya. She and her husband live in the house of Zhan's parents, who help the young family. At the moment Yanli is expecting her second child. She became pregnant unplanned. And although the birth of her daughter was not so long ago, she and her husband decided to keep the child.

Nine months after Zhan returned to civilization, Hai Kuan and Cheng were married in the smallest circle of the family in Canada. The two moved together to Shanghai, where Cheng got a good job as a future pediatrician in a hospital. Hai Kuan also quickly found a new job. At the moment they talk a lot about whether they should go abroad where they have the possibility to adopt a child. Because they both have a great desire to have children. But they won't leave until Cheng finishes his education.

After the disease in Yibo's father's eyes returned, a doctor found out the reason shortly before Sanya's death. A brain tumor which is just behind the eyes and can't be operated. He went completely blind and has been living in a nursing home ever since. Neither Yibo nor Hai Kuan visit him or react to his contact attempts. Since he is only looking for their pity anyway and always tried to persuade them to give up their partners and look for women. Yibo had enough of this and finally broke off contact with him.

A few weeks ago Zhan and Yibo moved into a bigger apartment. Actually, they had wanted to wait. But since both of them are often dependent on working from home for their work and therefore need an office, they started looking for an apartment. They finally found a large, bright four-room apartment in which each of them has his own office.

Actually they wanted to share an office, but since only one of them could work in the office at a time and their working hours often overlapped, they needed two offices.

At the moment they are both working feverishly to be able to spend more time together again and are planning their first holiday together. However, this is not so easy. While Zhan is a popular reporter and has many orders for interviews, Yibo and Lian are still the only employees in their office.

Actually, Yibo and Lian had wanted to hire one or two employees for a long time, but social work is in demand and both are literally suffocating in work, yet it's not well paid. And so the income is oftentimes only enough to pay the running costs for the office and their salaries. At the moment they even consider closing their office, as often not even the money for the salaries is enough.

Yibo could, if he wants, join Zhan's parents and work for them. But he doesn't want to give up that easy and Lian isn't ready to give up yet, either.

And during all the back and forth in this one year, Zhan always hoped that Yibo would change his mind and help him with the souls. But Yibo remained stubborn and continued to refuse to help Zhan. His priorities were different, he kept saying, and at some point Zhan gave up asking him about it.

But, there was something else that both of them noticed in that one year. Something that made Yibo think more and more. In the beginning it happened only rarely and Yibo always thought it was a coincidence to be able to feel exactly where Zhan is and how he is doing. But after the death of his mother this ability increased.

Whenever he thought about Zhan, he could feel him, see in his mind's eye what Zhan is doing and how he is doing. Once he was sitting in a conversation with a teenager when he suddenly became angry. Since Yibo had no reason to be angry, he knew that this could not come from him. When the young man left, Yibo listened to himself again and felt Zhan. He could feel that Zhan was angry.

And so he picked up the phone, called Zhan and asked him straight out, "ZhanZhan, why are you so angry?"

Zhan, who was completely stumped by this question, asked, "How do you know I'm angry?"

"Well, I can just feel it." Yibo replied, asking himself, how was that possible?

"You can feel it?"

" Mmm-hmm. Did something happen? Or why else are you so angry?"

A moment of silence followed, then Zhan said, "Because of an accident, I was late for an appointment and therefore couldn't do my interview. When I called the editorial office, they said the guy called and made a fuss because I wasn't there. And just now I met the guy and instead of just doing the interview, he explained to me for an hour how important punctuality is. He didn't care that there was an accident and that I therefore wasn't on time. And when I thought I could finally do my interview with him, he said he didn't feel like it anymore and left. What an asshole!"

And this was not the only time that Yibo, could feel Zhan so intensely inside himself. There were many incidents of this kind. Even one where Yibo suddenly felt a tingling sensation in his stomach, like when someone is newly in love. Hastily he called Zhan and asked him who he had met and Zhan explained to him: "I had just been to the shelter and saw a cute little cat there. It came towards me totally courageously, crawled on my lap and purred really loud. It was adorable. I am totally in love with that little cat."

Yibo was relieved that it was a cat, but still it confused him that he kept feeling Zhan, him and his emotions. And lately when he thinks about Zhan, he not only feels him, he sees him. More than once Yibo wondered if this is the strong bond that connects Zhan and him and that his mother had spoken of so often?

He told Zhan that he can feel Zhan's emotions now and then, but how far this goes in the meantime, he has not told him yet. Because he is still unsure if this is the strong bond or just a coincidence when he thinks of Zhan because he misses him so much. And this was another strange thing in Yibo's eyes.

Although Zhan and Yibo see each other every morning and every evening and spend the night together, he starts to miss Zhan as soon as he drives to work. Sometimes he misses Zhan so much that he just has to call him, just to hear his voice for a short while. This was new for him and has only been like this for two weeks.

This unbearable feeling of missing Zhan as soon as he leaves the house, even if it is only for an hour, almost frightens him. Not even when he went to the USA had it been as terrible as in the past two weeks. And since his mother is no longer alive, he cannot ask her about it. Although she left him several diaries, but so far he did not dare to read them. Because that would mean that he would deal with the supernatural, which he actually does not want.

What Yibo doesn't suspect, however, is that Zhan feels the same way as he does and only says nothing, because Yibo asked him to leave him alone with these supernatural things. And unlike Yibo, Zhan already knows that this is the strong bond between him and Yibo, which Wang Sanya has explained. Yet, Zhan still remains calm and tries to be patient until Yibo is ready and comes towards him.

A/N: I hope you won't hold it against me that I packed all this into a short summary. Sure, I could have made several chapters out of it, but hey, if I'm bored while writing, I don't want to know how you feel while reading. So don't be angry. A few chapters are still to come.