・・・☆・Twenty Three ・・・☆・

Yingyue felt numb in a way. She shouldn't have honestly it was Jing's choice to have informed her of this engagement and the subsequent marriage that was to occur by the year end. Sure this piece of information made everything else start to become clearer, why Lei suddenly came back, why he'd changed so much whilst in France. But it didn't explain as to why someone she thought was her best friend didn't tell her. Yingyue had remembered every phone call the two girls had shared in the last couple weeks, every couple of days, and yet nothing had been mentioned. No hints given or nothing. She wouldn't have flipped out on the older girl either. 

She had understood and wasn't pressuring the girl for information as to why her and Lei ended things. She hadn't gone off at the girl or anything. And she was sure she had made it clear that she valued their friendship highly, above most other friendships she had and had still kept the girl updated on everything to do with her life. So why had she not heard about this. Did Jing no longer trust her?

The groups whole mood had shifted after the revelation though they tried to put it behind them for now and continue to enjoy their holiday. Or at least Yingyue was going to put her feelings behind a locked door until later on that evening. Just because she didn't want to cry in front of the entire friendship group. Or at least those she couldn't trust. It wasn't until she was back in her room that she felt the crushing weight of her emotions.

The biggest emotion she felt was of rejection. It was almost as if by not informing her, once again of a very big life decision, she was being pushed out of the friendship she had with the older girl. Had Yingyue done something wrong that meant the older girl no longer trusted her or wanted her around. She really just didn't know how to approach the situation. Not after her own engagement and how despite it all the first person she told outside of the couple was Jing, her best friend, she sister figure. And yet she had to wait and find out through a news article. It wasn't fake news either not since Lei had confirmed it. 

Sat on the sofa in her hotel room she pulled out her phone. Clicking onto Jing's contact she could only stare at it. Part of her was screaming at her to call the older girl and demand an explanation. The other part of her wanted to mute the contact and wait until she was told personally about the engagement or wait until an invitation to the wedding appeared in the post. Neither option won out this time as she found herself clicking onto the messages the two had sent to each other prior to the news and typing out a simple message to the older girl. 

Big Sis Jing

Today

9:28pm 

I heard congratulations were in order

Yingyue then simply turned her phone off and placed it on the coffee table in front of her. She had no intent to see if the other girl would reply to her. She didn't want to know what excuse she was going to come up with. She was too hurt emotionally by the older girls actions to actually think about what she could say in response. Right now all she wanted to do was cry. And thats what she found herself doing. Her head in her hands and tears trailing down her face as her body started to shake from the sheer energy she was exerting. 

"Yingyue baby" Ximen tried to approach as carefully as possible he knew she had been upset about the news not having come from the person it was about but hadn't realised the impact it would had upon her until now. He crouched down before her and moved her hands away from her face to only see the tracks the previous tears had left and the current ones that gathered in her eyes. 

"You don't think I knew this whole time?" Ximen had to control himself from shaking his head at the ridiculous statement.

"I love you, I really do but you would have let this slip out of pure excitement less than 24 hours of her telling you." He counteracted moving one hand to cup her face and scooting himself closer so he was pressed against her knees and they were as close as they could physically get. 

"Did I do something wrong? For her not to tell me I must have messed up somewhere, first her leaving to Paris and now this." 

"No... no baby you done nothing wrong, you couldn't do anything wrong to make her act in this way. You've always supported her, you've held onto her secrets for so long. None of this is on you none of it." His forehead moved so it was briefly pressed against her own, then hand on her cheek brushed away a couple of tears before moving to the back of her head as the other one went around her waist. And he let her lean into him completely as she continued to cry out her feelings.