#I can go one month before rereading - yeeeeeeeeeeeeah

[memorydragon]

Okay, so my finger slipped and I reread the Po Yun manhua (to be fair to me, the good, non-ad infested version is going away at the end of the month) and decided maybe just posting about it will alleviate the need to consume it a third time since the start of the year.

(Okay, yes, I am a tiny bit of an eldritch horror when it comes to inhaling media. So shoot me.)

I'm just so insane about Bu Chonghua and his obsession with "I'm home."

The first time he says this, he says it to an empty apartment. It's status quo for him, and it's not a terrible life, but he had to chew someone out at work because after he explained PTSD with the clinical definition, explaining that the witness's differing accounts were because of this, the others started to say 'I didn't think a boy like this would be so weak.' And he barks back no, it doesn't matter how strong or weak someone is, it's a natural reaction to trauma. It doesn't make someone a mental case, nor is someone weak for reacting in a such a way.

(And I love that this is the first time Wu Yu takes note of what his superior is saying. We've seen how very little he thinks of Bu Chonghua and his leadership at this point. But at this Wu Yu stops and listens, and I love how in the manhua it shows him passing off the exit interviews and knowing exactly what to say to be 'mentally sound' while he's still deeply traumatized by Everything. He's listening, because it's the first time anyone has even mentioned the terms for what he's went through to him, and that is so fucked up, please just let him go to school like he wants to, but it's coming from Bu Chonghua, who he hates, but was patiently explaining it and calm until people started badmouthing it. He used his 'elite' schooling to normalize a trauma response, and Wu Yu takes note that maybe this guy isn't quite so awful.)

But Bu Chonghua isn't talking about the witness, not really. When he comes back to an empty house and says "I'm home," he goes through his usual routine and then, just before bed, he picks up the picture from his tenth birthday, before his parents were murdered in front of him and he has to tell himself to not think about it. Don't think about it, don't get lost in the memories. He's home, and he's safe and no one is there, but he can't break down. Because if he breaks, then he's the one who will have to pick up the pieces again, and he could be working, he could be preventing the 502 murderer from striking again, so he can't break. He's talking about himself, his own trauma, the in the clinical manner he was probably taught in, then he shoves everything down. He knows what he's doing is dangerous and self-destructive, but he's alone and he's home, so it's okay.

(And when that impulse almost kills Wu Yu, when the car drives them off the road and into the hands of the bad guys, it destroys him more than the accident and kidnapping)

The next time he says "I'm home," he very pointedly corrals Wu Yu into staying at his apartment. Yes, he's going to work. No, Wu Yu can't follow because he's still under 'confinement'. No, Wu Yu can't go to his own apartment, he has to stay at Bu Chonghua's. If Wu Yu leaves, then he wouldn't be able to discuss the interrogation when he gets back from work, right? Bu Chonghua shouldn't even have left the hospital, but he's pulled Wu Yu back from the dragon swallowing abyss, from Wu Yu's own self destructiveness, and he selfishly wants to keep Wu Yu there.

Of course, he really can't stop Wu Yu from leaving. When he comes back and says "I'm home!" there's no one there. The apartment is empty and dark (and Wu Yu hates the dark), and he's checked the guest room and everywhere just to be sure that maybe, just maybe, Wu Yu had fallen asleep and hadn't left. That he's not coming back to an empty apartment. Then he sees the light cracked under the door to the study. Wu Yu is asleep, curled up on the piano with a book. The lights are on. It's not an empty apartment. And the relief that hits Bu Chonghua nearly staggers him.

The third time he says "I'm home!" he told Wu Yu to stay at his apartment. He gave his key to Wu Yu. (You still left things at my place. You should just meet me there to pick them up and we can have dinner, then I'll send you back. Stay there. Stay please.) This time, the apartment really is empty. Wu Yu isn't there. There's no one but the framed picture of his parents. Wu Yu isn't answering his phone, and when he calls the office to find out where Wu Yu is, he learns that Wu Yu has taken leave. He's gone back to his old workplace and Bu Chonghua looks at his empty apartment then texts Wu Yu that's he's going to Yundian too. And he's in the car, pulling out to do just that, but there's Wu Yu holding a bag of take out on the corner in the rain.

They go back and eat the take out together.

Wu Yu is as determined to not mooch off his boss as his boss is determined to keep him, so he cooks, shooing Bu Chonghua out of the kitchen. "It's the first time I've ever cooked for someone," he says as Bu Chonghua ignores how incredibly unhealthy it all is and eats what Wu Yu made for him. Wu Yu laughs because Yan Xie's presents are truly terrible, but Bu Chonghua never threw them out, and his apartment isn't empty. He's home.

But wanting and having are two different things. When Wu Yu leaves again, this time determined, Bu Chonghua forces his way into Wu Yu's apartment, because he knows Wu Yu is there instead of at home. Wu Yu hilariously compares him to the Prince visiting Cinderella (and I have another rant for another day about Wu Yu's Cinderella complex) in his backward little apartment, but Bu Chonghua insists on doing the dishes, ignoring when Wu Yu tries to stop him, because he doesn't have a dishwasher and Prince Charming has to wash them all by hand.

When Wu Yu determines there's only one bed, and that one bed is not actually going to work for two grown men, he sets a mat on the floor for himself, trying to give Bu Chonghua the bed. Bu Chonghua bullies him into taking the bed, then has the nerve to say, 'I'm sleeping on the floor. That's what you get for not coming home.' And Wu Yu has to deal with the fact his boss is sleeping on his floor.

Wu Yu can't sleep though, not with the lights off and too many things to think about. He moves to give Bu Chonghua his blanket, and Bu Chonghua, who has all the swag that his cousin doesn't, captures his Cinderella. ('If you don't say anything, I'm going to kiss you.' Captain Bu, please.)

When Bu Chonghua pauses at the door, because his colleague had been bragging about how he didn't even have to unlock the door, his wife just opened it when she heard him coming and he thinks that it's probably a little too ridiculous, even for a fantasy. But then Wu Yu opens the door, teasing him about if his finger was broken that he couldn't unlock the door himself, and his apartment is lit up and bright and warm. And he's home.

When Wu Yu kisses him, then punches him hard in the face because it was Bu Chonghua who left home first this time, ("Things that are not used only take up space." Wu Yu, talking about cutting Bu Chonghua's dick off like the power bottom he is. I actually do have quite a few thoughts on service top sub Bu Chonghua and Wu Yu taking control. It's a pity I'm too ace to write them.) his apology is that if Wu Yu had known he wouldn't have the courage to take the risk. ("It takes a lot of courage to clear your name for you," Wu Yu rightly retorts, but admittedly, this plot has been in the making since before he entered Bu Chonghua's life again.) He's so happy to have his home back, even when he can't go home.

When everything is revealed, when the pumpkin finally turns back into a carriage and it's all tumbled down, when Bu Chonghua has to chase after Wu Yu, running head first into an explosion and a flood because he just wants to hold Wu Yu's hand one more time, when Wu Yu asks 'Are you taking me home?' Bu Chonghua's answer is 'No, I don't have to take you. Where you are is my home.'

Wu Yu's true name meaning 'to return/to come home' makes me feral, ngl.

Because this is what Bu Chonghua wanted more than anything else. Wu Yu appeared in his life the day he lost his family - his home. And only when Wu Yu has returned, his home is no longer an empty apartment, but family again.