V began to swing his legs off the balcony, the feeling of cool air meeting every small kick he made but it was inexplicably calming as he recounted his story without prompt.
"You know… I wasn't popular in school."
Xiao Yi lifted one of his legs from the air, propped it up on the balcony and leaned against it, and the pole, and just listened.
V grew up in a loving family. His mother and father both loved him and each other dearly despite being married through a marriage alliance.
His mother's family delved into the pharmaceutical and beauty world, their knowledge focused on combining both old and new techniques. They kept history alive through older, natural remedies and skincare products but as the times changed they had to adapt to the ever-growing needs of consumers, primarily looking to increase shelf life.
His father's family was more diversified in technology, retail, and real estate companies as well as a few smaller offices in finance and accounting. Originally, his family had started as simple scholars, then merchants, and progressed through time as they adapted to the developing world.
All in all, neither were new money families and both had enough to benefit by marrying their children.
V himself was very much coddled by both families as the only grandson. He spent most summers and weekends with his grandparents as his parents found themselves busy with their careers, but this also caused him to become spoiled under their care.
V chuckled. "I used to think I was a hotshot because so many kids wanted to be around me… It turns out that none of them wanted to be my friend, but their parents wanted more influence. Either it was a businessman wanting to become partners with my family or a child with parents or relatives that wanted to work in the company."
By the age of seven, V's parents recognized the motives of those parents and promptly switched him to another school. And then another. And another.
They simply didn't want their child being used for adult schemes, but by the age of eleven, they realized that their son would be approached no matter where they'd send him within the city.
V hummed and took a sip of his beer. "Well, if everyone in this city knew who I was - would foreigners? That's what my parents thought, so they decided to send me abroad to live with my mother's older brother who ran away from home."
'Ran away from home?'
He paused for a moment, glanced at Xiao Yi, and added. "It's a whole story, he ran away off because he found a man he liked and didn't know if his parents would accept him. Then, once he did reach out and they accepted him, he had already built a life in America."
Xiao Yi met his glance and nodded slowly. It's still quite stigmatized in their country but love is love.
It turns out that V's parents were right. The parents had no clue who he was, hence, kids weren't sent to butter him up. A new problem arose, though.
V was the only Asian kid in school, and his English wasn't very good so instead of being worshiped, he was being bullied. Even as he learned English, he couldn't find himself holding friends and was pretty much the black sheep that sat at the table with other black sheep at lunch time, yet none of them wanted to be friends with one another.
The only bonus with sending V away was that when he came back to the country to go to university - no one knew who he was since he stayed in dorms instead of going home.
After another sip of his beer, V leaned back and straightened his legs in the air. "We fell in love when she thought I came from an average family, I guess that changed after she married into a wealthy family? I'm not really sure where things went wrong, she used to be such a shy little bunny."
Xiao Yi lit another cigarette and glanced at the sky, only able to see a few stars through the city lights. "Envy or greed?"
"Well, whatever it was, she's not the girl I fell in love with anymore."