#god the eldest child bullshit was so strong in this episode

[doublel27]

I know how deep we are in the Phum and Fang trauma train.

But it’s so horrifying when you consider Beer put Phum at like 4-5 if I remember correctly.

Which means at the oldest they were when Phum got sent away, they were 5 and 6 respectively.

Six is so young. And it was a six-year old Fang that made relentless international phone calls when his brother was sent away. It was a six-year old Fang that was trapped in that giant house alone, because of how focused on the business his parents were, listing to his brother cry in the middle of the night. And you can only think that he probably tried to convince his parents that Phum could stay, that he could take care of him.

According to Beer, they were inseparable before Phum was sent away. And they’re only a year or so apart, Fang has no memories that pre-date Phum’s existence at this point.

Which leaves me with how traumatic it is for your best friend, your constant companion to be ripped from you or you from them, and just trying to hold on to each other across the distance and time. And you would think, as an adult with the best intentions, that best case scenario is they sent Phum away theoretically because they were busy and that way Fang wouldn’t be responsible for him, but Fang still remained responsible for Phum with the distance between them. Fang promising both of them that everything would be alright when Phum came home.

But it wasn’t alright. And Fang spent the last 7-10 years trying to fix the things that are broken and Phum has spent the last 15 years trying to figure out why he’s not enough.

And then the line that killed me was Fang asking Tan not to just disappear on him. If Fang wasn’t enough, to tell him straight, instead of disappearing into the ether. And while Tan reassured Fang how madly in love he is and how he’d never be the one to break up with Fang, my mind flipped back to episode 2, where Fang looks at Tan and observes that Tan isn’t dead. And Tan responded with you haven’t been around either.

And we can assume it’s because neither of them knew what to do with their feelings unsure of how the other one felt…but Fang has already felt Tan disappeared on him once and I…remain not okay.

I need to continue the TanFang fic I started last week that meditated on this particular thought of Fang’s psyche and that line from ep 2.