#what survives after all the dust has gone { zhao ; headcanons } | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

shininginyourlight · 9 months ago

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he's no stranger to relationships

by the time he met the party in 2019, however, it'd definitely been a while.

from the time he was in middle school, he had already unexpectedly found himself popular with his classmates. with his natural charm, it was hard not to be drawn to him. at valentine's day, he'd usually end up with a good few gifts, though at least half were always given away to his best friend, akira.

tianyou ended up in his first real relationship (after a small string of day or week long relationships) just before he graduated middle school. he hadn't seen koharu as anything more than a friend, but smiled and accepted her feelings anyway. that was how good romances started, right? between good friends?

it, too, wouldn't last too long. this one did last for a couple of months, though. she'd been overly anxious about the fact that they hadn't kissed yet, while tianyou hadn't been interested in that at all. with his lack of intentions clear, they'd inevitably end up breaking up. their friendship never recovered from it.

his next relationship was a bit more promising. he was once again approached by a girl in his grade, this one being mayumi. he actually did find himself liking her a bit. he'd get his first kiss from her not long before her 15th birthday. he thought he was enjoying himself. he thought this was good, more promising. however, it was about halfway through their 7th month together when he realized he wasn't liking it as much as he thought.

he fantasized more about his male classmates than his female. but, that was fine, right? at least he did fantasize about girls a bit. just... nowhere near as much as he thought about the guys.

coming to this realization, he put an end to things just a couple of weeks before their first anniversary. he felt bad, but he wasn't gonna stick with it if he didn't really care about her as much as she cared about him.

in the time between breaking up with mayumi and his next relationship, he would unceremoniously find out what the big fuss about sex was about. it was good, but he wouldn't end up dating that person. that person was out of his life as quickly as they'd become a part of it.

zhao's first real boyfriend would end up being a boy a year older than him. mitsui kousei, age 18. he'd been eyeing him from the moment he made it to high school, in all honesty. he actually thought he might've lost his chance with him after zhao found out one of the guys he fought after school one day had been kousei's best friend. the rage he'd felt at himself had been overwhelming, with mabuchi having to pick up the pieces before they made it back home and zhao's parents would see him like this.

thankfully, that wasn't the case.

he was hoping it would last a while, but he guessed that was still a bit misguided on his part. after just under half a year of dating kousei and regularly bickering with his best friend, kousei and tianyou broke up. the divide between the best friend and boyfriend was apparently too much, and apparently he chose his friend over him. he couldn't be mad at that, really. he knew he would've chosen akira over kousei, too.

in his last year of high school, zhao was feeling a bit apathetic toward dating at that point. his parents were on his back about making sure his grades were outstanding, so he figured he'd at least try to do as they said to keep them from nagging his ass about it.

enter shimomura satoru. he'd know him since middle school, but he hadn't necessarily ever been someone he was close to. but when zhao's 18th birthday ended up going south badly, the first to really join zhao's side was satoru. he hadn't expected it, but zhao really felt them connect that night, much to mabuchi's dismay.

with both of their places as their family's heir, neither had issue with hiding their relationship. however, as graduation came for the both of them, zhao was surprised when satoru was acting like things were ending between them as soon as high school ended. he'd hoped they'd at least be able to keep things up for a while longer. satoru would insist, though, and this would absolutely devastate zhao.

it wasn't like he thought they'd get married or anything, but he... he hated to admit that he'd become extremely attached to satoru. the abruptness of how things ended led to few months of spiraling.

for a while, zhao avoided attachment like the plague. sexual partners came and went with the tide.

he became a bit harder to handle in that time, for both his parents and his friends. if asked later in life, zhao wouldn't even be able to recall when he met lin minghao. he hadn't always been here. he hadn't grown up with him like mabuchi. all of a sudden he was just there, and he almost never wasn't.

they never were officially dating, but he stuck close by zhao's side for a long time, longer than any other romantic or sexual relationship he'd ever had. he wasn't sure if they every really loved each other other, but the care was there. his loyalty was unwavering as mabuchi's appeared to be.

the bubble burst when zhao was 24, when another stole his attention.

kaname tetsuya, or sheh yueming, had started off as nothing more than a passionate fuck after a drink too many. while basking in that afterglow, however, zhao felt himself falling for him pretty quick. he just listened to yueming talk until zhao fell asleep against him. they would officially start dating that following morning.

in the midst of their relationship, zhao would unexpected become the new head of the yokohama liumang. yueming started playfully playing up his position as the leader's right hand almost immediately. if they couldn't be totally public about their relationship, after all, why not have him as his right hand?

needless to say, the boat was definitely rocked when zhao instead insisted on mabuchi in the position. yueming, who'd never really gotten along with mabuchi in the first place, was quick to become annoyed with the decision. he echoed similar points as the older members, of zhao's father. zhao didn't want to hear it.

despite that, their relationship continued.

the stress of the position began to wear down zhao's eagerness in the relationship. he was tired, struggling to keep things afloat and proving himself to the older members.

and then his father died.

zhao hates looking back on that time. everything collapsed on him in that moment. he was snapping at everyone, a hair away from having a nervous breakdown. he'd never struggled with his mental health before, really, but his father's death had really done its damage.

after a particularly bad fight between yueming and him, yueming would end things. both of them were seeing red, about ready to start unleashing on one another. thankfully, minghao and mabuchi both were able to separate them before things got too bad.

that abrupt end to his longest relationship would put an end to zhao's dating ventures. maybe an extended fling, but he just couldn't see anything coming again. the gang wanted a marriage, an heir to be born. zhao didn't want that, couldn't promise that.

what was the point then? better to just have the fun without the commitment.

#what survives after all the dust has gone { zhao ; headcanons }#these were about as brief as i could make them #and it's still long as hell

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