Thread by @bingjiuwus

#liujiu divorce EXTRA ENDING 2: YOU ONLY LOVE ONCE

*

"Oh, Qingge."

The moment Shen Jiu exhaled and turned his face away, Liu Qingge knew he had said the wrong thing.

https://twitter.com/bingjiuwus/status/1599216215607889922

"It's as if nothing I just said even got to you," his husband - ex-husband murmured, glancing at him with reddened eyes. "What about how our relationship ended makes you think I want to go through that all over again?"

LQG's heart thudded in his chest like a rat scrabbling against the bars of its cage. "It won't _be_ like that again," he said. "I'll change, I'll be better. I'll look after you the way you looked after me, I'll make sure my family and the media doesn't bother you, I'll - "

"No," said SJ, "you won't."

The last residue of a smile wore off his face, and he now stared at LQG with his hands at his sides and his back straight, as if they were strangers.

"Qingge," SJ asked. "If you really felt that way, why the fuck haven't you already done any of that already?" He tilted his head, pale green eyes like cold chips of ice as they studied LQG.

"The public still thinks I'm a cheating whore," SJ said. "You know why I like working for Hualing?

Truth be told it could be anything, but the main reason is I spend most of my time abroad, away from total strangers who like to ask me in public how it was breaking the heart of China's national son. I have to worry about that every single time I come back home."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "So why the hell was the only official statement you ever made just saying you wanted your privacy respected and you wouldn't comment on it further? What about me? You _know_ the truth, Qingge, so - "

"It wasn't me!" LQG burst out. He didn't -

Made it a point not to talk to media, because he made a horrible interview and he had never trusted a journalist in his entire life. "My manager said that. Not me."

"Is that so," SJ echoed. "And does your manager always say things on your behalf without you knowing?"

LQG was miserable. "I would have made it worse if I'd said anything myself and you know it."

"You should have!" SJ shouted suddenly, fists balling up at his sides. "You should have freaked out at a press conference and yelled at a reporter and told everyone you still loved me.

You could have given me something, _anything_ these past three years if you cared about me more than your own image. Not this pretty sob story now about how you're a changed man and that means you deserve a second chance." He smiled wryly.

"I mean, I am too, but that doesn't mean I want to give it another go. Maybe that chapter of my life is just over, you know? And now that I've seen you again, I don't have to think about it ever again."

"A'Jiu - " LQG's heart seized up. "Tell me what you want. Tell me what would make you happy, please. Do you want me to quit running? Cut ties with my family, follow you at your job? I just don't know how to make you smile at me again. Maybe I never did..."

"Idiot."

SJ's expression was both fond and contemptuous. "I remember," he said, "when you would buy too much food at the school canteen and always give me the biggest pieces of meat, saying you were already full when you hadn't touched anything on your plate.

I never asked for you to do that, but you did that for me every day for a year. Sometimes that was the only meat I'd get to eat all day, the only way I got to feel full. " He sniffled. "What the fuck does quitting your job have to do with trying to make me happy?

What the hell do you think trying to put yourself in my shoes is going to do except make you resent me when it's my turn to stay late at work over spending time with you? Besides," he added.

"You've never done laundry a day in your life. Let's not pretend you'd magically become a perfect housewife overnight."

"I can try," LQG mumbled. "I could learn - "

"I'm sure you could," SJ said. "But it's just this, Qingge: I'm not a part of your life anymore, and I don't want to be. Whatever you want to do from now on, great, but it has nothing to do with me, and the same goes for me."

_And the same goes for me._

And just like that, SJ walked out of his life again, and this time without looking back.

*

"Ge, are you okay in there? Can I come in?"

The conversation still rung in LQG's mind hours after SJ had left. LQG stayed in that room, unable to go back out again and face SJ or that bastard Luo Binghe or any of Mingyan's friends on the happiest night of her life.

He had no idea what the hell he was going to do now.

Those three years apart, a small part of him had always deluded himself that if he ran into SJ again, it would be like they were kids and a few tearful assurances and a hug would be enough to convince the man LQG still loved him, that what had happened before was a mistake,

a horrible, dreadful mistake, but they had both learned and suffered, and were ready to come back to each other a little more mature and knowing.

Suffering. Who the hell in this relationship had actually suffered.

SJ was right. LQG had never spoken out against how the media had treated his husband, too ashamed of himself to even think about the situation, much less talk about it to reporters over and over again. He hadn't - but he could have at least told people to back off rather than

demanding no comment for himself.

SJ had lost his job because of him, had to rely on LBH's charity for work because it was a crapshoot he could even find a job in China otherwise where he was guaranteed some level of protection and security.

LQG could have cut him a check. Should have, to ensure SJ would never have to work again.

But he knew the stubborn person his husband was. He would have torn that check up in front of LQG's eyes and railed at him for thinking him so pitiful in the first place.

But wasn't he? Hadn't LQG wronged him, so he should be the one to right him? Only...

Only, his husband truly wanted nothing to do with him anymore, and all of LQG's derailing chaotic thoughts meant - meant -

He didn't know if they meant anything anymore. At least, not where SJ was concerned.

*

"Ge, what the fuck!" LMY cried out as soon as she opened the door to find the bar a shattered mess and LQG sprawled out on the couch with a half-empty bottle of gin in hand.

"Fuck, have you been drinking the whole time? My god..."

LQG knew he should be ashamed, fucking up his little sister's big day like this, but at least he'd gotten wasted on his own?

"M'ngy'n," he slurred as she rushed over and snatched the bottle away from him. "'m I a bad person?"

"What?" said LMY. "Of course not, ge, you're my big brother, the best person in the world."

"But I broke A'Jiu's heart," LQG said blankly. "I made him hate me... no, not even that. He just doesn't want to think about me anymore. Doesn't wanna spend time with me or love me..." He felt like throwing up. "Why am I so bad at loving him? Why can't I just get it right?"

"I don't know, ge," LMY said gently. "Sometimes things just don't work out."

"But they _did_!" LQG gasped. "For a long it worked, and I didn't have to think about why it did, just that he made me happy and the other way around too. I thought that was what love was. Not this

miserable shit..."

"This is the wrong conversation to have while you're drunk," LMY said. "Here, drink this water first?"

LQG obeyed her grudgingly, sucking down the bottle of water she passed him before she would speak again.

"For you," she said cautiously, "loving Shen-ge

always _was_ easy. You were always the one who got to help him, to save him, to offer him what no one else could. And being kind like that was easy to you, ge. He must have thought the world of you then." She sighed, shaking her head. "But then you weren't kids anymore, but

both adults with jobs and bills to pay. But just because things stayed easy for you didn't mean the same for Shen-ge.

He always found it hard to fit in with our family, you know, and you just telling him to let it go and relax didn't help, not when you didn't know _why_ he was stressed out all the time."

"It's not like I didn't care," LQG said. "I did. I mean, I thought I did..."

"Yeah," LMY said. "But bobo and gumu were always good to us, so how could Shen-ge not know they cared about him too? He was the one who didn't get it, right? He just had to fit in and get along, and then everything would be alright."

So simple. Everything was excruciatingly simple when she put it like that - and yet obvious that it never would have worked. Get along, get along, Shen Jiu, why can't you just get along...

"I just..." LQG closed his eyes. "Don't know what to do anymore."

SJ had said that chapter of his life was over. Sounded practically relieved too. But could LQG say the same for him? Did he want to turn that page and no longer re-visit their memories together, how good they used to be together?

He didn't think he could, not in a thousand years. LQG was the one who had destroyed his marriage, and he was also the one holding onto its tattered remains, trying to patch the holes on a piece of clothing his husband would never wear again, just in case (just in case).

Was there a point to any of this beyond feeling sorry for himself? Was there a point to Liu Qingge without Shen Jiu?

"Oh, ge." LMY slid arms around his shoulders and squeezed him in a hug. "I'm sure you'll find out sooner or later. You still have the rest of your life, after all."

Maybe. But he would have to spend the rest of his days discovering what he actually wanted out of life, what his career and family and image meant to him now that he no longer had SJ waiting at home for him with a cup of tea and a hot bath,

what success was worth, what an Olympic gold medal and the country's adoration was worth compared to his husband's love, his shy smile as he pressed a kiss to LQG's cheek so quick the cameras couldn't catch it -

- and he would have to do all of it without Shen Jiu.

And whatever he found inside the facade called Liu Qingge, called China's national son, called 'ge', he would have to live with that for the rest of his life, and answer to it.

For better or for worse, LQG was on his own.

END

(Ah, the second ending is kind of a downer. Well, LQG still has LMY and a bit more of a clue now. Either way, he's gotta clean up his own messes from now on...)

(SJ was upset during the conversation, but honestly he'll be ok 😅 he's strong, even if he shouldn't have to be 🥲)