Imperfect Desires

*Flashback Continued*

It took a long while for Han Bohai to come around from the turmoil of his own thoughts. He so desperately wanted to believe that they were indeed talking about the same person but every time voice in his head would throw a bucket of cold water on him saying, 'It was merely a coincidence.'

However, just how many coincidences can one really have?

Jackie was oblivious to the changes that he was internally going through as he continued, "I'm just telling you this because I can tell you're hurting. And I can also tell you miss your sister Xiu. And I believe wherever she is, she won't like to see you like this."

"Little gentleman," began Han Bohai with a heavy tone laced with sadness. "How are you so good with words at this age?"

Jackie shrugged his shoulders as he told her, "I have superior genes." Han Bohai couldn't help chuckling at his reply. "Also, I have two eccentric sisters. I can't be dull if I want to win in the battle of wits with those two sisters. Trust me, being a little brother is not easy."

Han Bohai sighed out, "You're right. It's really not easy. You want to become strong to protect your sister but find yourself helpless most of the time. You want your sister to share all her worries with you but she doesn't want to burden you."

The reason why Jackie grew even closer to Han Bohai after this was because he felt like Han Bohai shared a lot of his feelings. He could understand him even though they had decades of the age difference between them. But currently, age wasn't involved. They were just two little brothers who shared the same feelings towards their sisters. And that alone was enough to bring them close.

"Do you know my Sister Xiu loves to sleep?" said Jackie. "But actually, it's just her way to hide from things. She says, she didn't get enough sleep in her previous life because she suffered from insomnia, so now, she was planning on getting all the sleep she missed out on. However, I know she wants to sleep just to avoid thinking about things."

Han Bohai found it difficult to question but he still asked, "What is she avoiding?"

"That I don't know," replied Jackie honestly.

"There is something that you don't know?" Han Bohai wasn't faking his surprise, he was genuinely taken aback.

"Sister Xiu said if you don't know something, you should accept that you don't know it. There is nothing wrong with showing your flaws once in a while. Not everyone's goal should be to achieve perfection because it's the imperfections that make us beautiful and real."

Han Bohai had long lost the count of times he found an image of Chen Xiu in Jackie's Sister Xiu. In fact, the two faces of Chen Xiu and Bai Xiu were clashing within his mind. Even if they were two different people, his heart really couldn't come to terms to believe that they were really two different people.

*End of Flashback*

In this way, talking for an hour with Jackie had made Han Bohai's suspicion grow stronger and stronger until he only needed a single nudge to believe in unbelievable! 

And that single nudge was given by Xiu herself when she called out to him in her unconscious state. He had been left with no other choice but to believe in the impossible. In fact, from the very beginning, he wanted to believe in the impossible. Even without Xiu's confession, he was willing to whole-heartedly believe in the impossible. After all, he finally found a ray of light in his dark world where he thought the light would never be able to shine again.

Xiu felt complicated hearing the course of events that Han Bohai described to her in detail. "I can't believe it was Jackie who gave me away," she said with a sigh. "But how come you even believed his words so easily?"

"Maybe because my heart wanted to believe in it," replied Han Bohai without hesitation. "I couldn't help it. The things he said had an uncanny resemblance to what I knew about you. There was no way, my mind would wander about recklessly."

Xiu found it difficult to believe herself as she pushed her hair back saying, "It took me years to come to term with this reincarnation stuff. And you came up with this bizarre idea on your own? I don't know who is more ridiculous now. Me who went through all this and yet took years to accept it or you, who didn't even take a moment before accepting it so easily."

Han Bohai pressed his lips together for a minute before he said, "Your husband knows this truth as well." Xiu looked at him wondering if that was a question or a statement. But she figured it out when he continued, "If he can believe in this, why can't I?"

"And how can you be sure that my husband knows the truth about me?" inquired Xiu.

"Because I know," he replied. "You'll never start a relationship based on a lie. Even if the truth would break everything, you'd still choose the truth. Didn't you use to say that relationships based on lies and deceptions are like sandcastles? Just one turbulent wave of the sea is enough to raze everything in its wake."

Xiu closed her eyes and pinched the space between her brows, "Okay. I accept he knows. I also accept that he believes me but that's because I confessed everything on my own. And I did it in a way that he couldn't contradict my words. He had no other choice than to believe me."

"I also had no other choice," said Han Bohai. "Even if someone said, there is a ghost of you around me, I'd still believe it. As long as something or someone gave me a reason to believe that you're not gone, I'd believe it."