Thread by @bingjiuwus

#liujiu divorce/#bingjiu EXTRA ENDING 1: BETTER TO HAVE LOVED AND LOST

*

"Binghe and I are together, yes."

With that single sentence a door slammed shut in the loneliness of Liu Qingge's mind, and he buckled to his knees in shock.

https://twitter.com/bingjiuwus/status/1597799703206563840

"O - oh," he managed, grabbing the leg of a nearby bar stool to brace himself.

"Qingge!" SJ knelt to help him up, stunned at his reaction. He reached for him tentatively, then stopped, keeping his beautiful hands away.

"Dummy..." his husband - ex-husband said softly, looking at LQG like he used to whenever he wandered into the kitchen and tried to be useful for a change. "You shouldn't have asked if _that_ was how you were going to react."

LQG shook his head, still half-sprawled on the floor like a drunk. "And - and you like him?" he stammered out.

SJ sighed, looking away. "That's not appropriate for you to ask, Qingge," he muttered. "Our five minutes are up anyway."

He knew that, _of course_ he knew that.

"_Please_," LQG said.

SJ bit his lip. "Yes, I like him," he said. "We've been together for two years now. He's good to me. We spend a lot of time together at home. He likes to visit me at work, too."

His pale face had begun to pink, but meanwhile LQG felt cold as ice.

"Is that what I should have done?" he croaked. "Visit you at work, do my share of the chores?"

"Qingge, that's not it - "

"Please, A'Jiu," he burst out. "How the hell did I fuck up so badly you'd want to spend the rest of your life with _that_ asshole?"

SJ stiffened.

"I know you don't like him," he said quietly. "And that's fine. Binghe's reputation has never been very clean, but personally, that's just fine for a cheater like me." He smiled when LQG flinched at that.

"The nice thing about Binghe," SJ murmured, "isn't that he's rich or famous or even that he knows how to clean up after himself. Every relationship involves sacrifice. I knew that when I married you, when you married me." He rubbed his nose, colouring.

"It's just... he makes time for me. Whenever I finish work he picks me up, even if it's two in the morning, and then we'll have dinner together, whether he made it for me or not. I never have to wait up on my own in the dark for him, and I don't have to worry about him choosing

anything else over me, even work or business."

LQG opened his mouth, but SJ shook his head and kept going. "I know," he said. "You've wanted to be an Olympic runner long before you ever met me. You have a huge, amazing family, people who all care about long before I did.

You're so important to everyone else, Qingge, and that was why I could never ask you to make time for me. Because - because I couldn't live with you choosing everything else over me, whether it be work or family or anything else that came up. You'd already chosen me once before,

when you saved me. I wanted to believe that was good enough, that I could just be happy with us being married even if you were always somewhere else and I was watching you on TV like everyone else.

"Well," he added. "Turns out I'm just as jealous as you are. I don't want to share my husband with his colleagues or his family or the media. I want him for all myself, and I want him to love me before everyone else."

He smiled sadly. "Isn't that what everyone wants?"

LQG's eyes stung with tears. "I love you, A'Jiu. I loved you first."

"I know," SJ said. "Unfortunately, it's not enough anymore, Qingge."

He stepped back and let LQG pick himself up on his own, turning away to wipe at his own face with the same delicate fingers that would lift so easily to rub at LQG's temples when he was stressed out.

"Had a bad day?" SJ used to tease LQG, when he came back late and frustrated after a day full of mediocre running times and petty arguments with his coaches.

"Mm." LQG would never say much when his husband went into pampering mode, content to leave his frustrations outside and absorb SJ's tender fussing in silence.

"You're so spoiled, Qingge," SJ used to tell him. "What would you do without me, honestly..."

"'ll never have to find out," LQG would mutter gruffly into his shoulder, and his husband burst out laughing and agree.

That was then; this was now.

*

"Don't wallow in self-pity anymore, Qingge," SJ said, staring out the window of the room to the city at night below.

"You're successful and more popular than ever before. You have your family, you have Mingyan. I'm sure you have people beating down your door for the chance to go on a date, if you'd let them."

"Don't want them," LQG said hoarsely. "Don't want any of them."

SJ's reflection smiled at him; they both knew it wasn't his problem anymore what LQG did.

"Alright," he said, turning to face him one last time. "Then I'll finish with this: thank you. Thank you for saving me and taking me in back then. Without you,

I'm sure I would have been strung up on something or dead by now. Thank you for looking after me, Qingge, even though you didn't have to. If you'd stayed that way all your life, I - " He cut himself off, pursing his lips.

"I can change," LQG blurted out. "I can be the boy you used to love, I can be better, I can - "

"Qingge," SJ said. "Whatever you choose to do with your life from now on, it's not up to me. I hope you find happiness, really. But don't grovel just to get me back again.

We both know it's not going to work."

And like watching a car wreck in slow motion, LQG watched SJ walk past him and unlock the door, turning the door knob before hesitating, and murmuring:

"I don't know if we'll see each other again. Either way, I hope you find peace, Qingge. That's all I could want for you from now on."

And what could LQG say to that?

"Jiu-ge." Luo Binghe was on the other side of the door, waiting for SJ, and in a heartbeat he took LQG's ex-husband away, just like he had before.

And LQG let SJ be taken away, walk away just like before, because he was right. The two of them had nothing to do with each other anymore.

And Liu Qingge would have to live with that.

*

He stood by the wall for the rest of the night, even as Mingyan asked him if he was alright. LQG couldn't act to save his life, but for once he welled up a stiff smile and told her to go back out there and have fun, insisting when she lingered by his side.

SJ was right. He still had so many people who cared about him.

Nevertheless, he kept his gaze on his ex-husband in the ballroom, how lovely he looked in that green suit of his, the way he lightly held onto LBH's arm and smiled when the man talked to him, offered him food and drink like it was _his_ party instead.

He saw how SHL, the other bride, came around in a bright red dress and flung her arms around SJ, clearly drunk and noisy, SJ rolling his eyes as he pulled her off to foist her into a laughing Mingyan's arms.

He had friends now. A lover who worshipped his every move, and a social circle that extended of more than LQG and his sister-in-law.

SJ had thanked LQG for saving him, but LQG hadn't given him anything meaningful, not truly. Not like the way his husband had given him his whole heart and life in turn, the way it looked like LBH gazed at SJ the same way SJ used to look at LQG.

A small, empty, low part of them wished their relationship would fall apart too; that LBH would return to his extravagant, philandering ways and SJ, heartbroken and horrified, would return to LQG's arms for comfort and in tears.

But who the fuck was he kidding?

Even if LBH was a piece of shit, how was LQG any better? What had he done to earn SJ's love again, what had he done at all?

Nothing.

His husband always thought so lowly of himself but in truth he was a phoenix, and he could survive anything the world threw at him. He was resilient, brilliant, brighter than the sun and just as healing.

He would move on; _had_ moved on despite LQG breaking his heart and ruining their marriage out of frustration and suspicion alone. He had found another job, one he flourished at, found friends all his own and a lover who would never let him settle for second place in his heart,

even if it meant the rest of the world could burn instead.

After all the world had thrown at him, SJ was happy now, and magnanimous enough, if not to forgive LQG, to not demand recompense for how he had hurt him.

_I hope you find peace, Qingge._

LQG did too. And maybe one day, he would find it, whether on his own or with another.

Just... just not today.

And not right now.

END

(The first of three endings for the liujiu divorce thread extra is over! LQG... has a lot to think over now. Maybe he'll change, maybe he won't. But now he knows SJ is no longer his, and has moved on.

Maybe it's time for him to do the same. But how he goes on that journey will be up to him alone.

Thanks for reading! We'll return with the second option a few days from now 😎)

(FYI please go back to the original thread to see the other parts/endings too! Lots of ways to cook this particular turkey, believe me 😎)