The phone had been charging for a while, yet, Xiao Yi could only sit on the stool at the kitchen counter and stare at it with his chin resting on one of his hands, debating whether or not to turn it on. Well, he knew he had to get into touch with everyone again, he couldn't stay MIA forever, but he didn't know whether or not he was ready yet.
What if he went back into his old patterns after falling into the warm embrace of his old life?
That was what he was scared of. Falling back into the same routine of depending on his older brother's shoulder as he streamed to be able to get a comfortable sleep, relying on Chen Qiang to read his face and translate his thoughts to others, and not being able to properly comfort V when he was going through troubles.
Then again, he wondered what they had been up to and how much they have changed over the months he'd been gone.
Were they like Yang Yutao, who had left the esports world all together? How was the living situation, did they get their money back and find a place to live or did Lee let them live in his apartment? What about his brother…
He had almost searched them up so many times to see how they were doing, but he could never bring himself to do so.
After a while, he reached out his hand with a long sigh. He was just making excuses again.
It was time to face the consequences of his actions, time to show how much he'd grown on his own, and time to prove that he didn't need to be treated like a toddler.
For a moment, he couldn't even open his phone due to the onslaught of notifications that he'd missed over the months that he'd been gone.
Once he was finally able to open his phone and read through his messages, he learned quite a bit. Lee had become especially talkative despite receiving no response on his end nor being close.
His brother had his checkup and was still clear of cancer, which was a relief, though Lee could have worded it better than 'I took Xiao Qiu to the hospital today… He's fine.'
Apparently, his teammates still mooched off Lee since they hadn't been able to recover their money back, but they had found the person who stole from them and were in the process of taking her to court.
Chen Qiang went missing for a few months after he left, but he came back after spending some time with his parents.
They all went to therapy and understood that they were indeed smothering him a bit.
V and his wife were divorced, V had decided to set up camp in the apartment next to his since Yang Yutao's team had moved out.
Otherwise, not much had happened. Both of their teams had sat out of this season to focus on themselves.
"I've decided to message you to ask for your blessing to date your brother. However, since I'll receive no response anyway, I'll take it as a yes."
"…"
Xiao Yi stared at the phone in his hand with an open mouth.
Lee asked out his brother?
Sent one week ago: "Your brother said yes, when you come back, call me brother-in-law."
Was Lee always that cringy? What brother-in-law, did he agree?