Younger man / fake brothers
Xu Sicheng thinks his big brother has had a rough life.
He was abandoned at an orphanage as a newborn. When he was six, a couple took him in. Less than a year later, that couple's biological son, Xu Sicheng, was born.
The family of four didn't enjoy their happy days for long. Their parents died in a traffic accident, and after paying off their debts, their bank accounts were empty.
Xu Sicheng went with his brother to live with relatives. His brother studied during the day and did chores at night, then worked part-time during school breaks, all so they would have to put up with fewer scornful looks.
Everyone said his brother was born under an unlucky star. His birth parents had abandoned him, he'd supposedly brought about the deaths of his adoptive parents, and he'd even driven the whole family into bankruptcy.
But to Xu Sicheng, without his brother, he wouldn't even know if he could have survived.
Xu Song got his name by chance. When his new parents came to take him home, the road was lined with pine trees, so they named him Xu Song. Who would have thought that, by a twist of fate, he really would grow into a pine tree, protecting his little brother as he grew into a sapling of his own?
In his senior year of high school, he got a 200-yuan scholarship. He bought groceries for the aunt he was boarding with, some fruit for her daughter, and used the thirty yuan he had left to buy Xu Sicheng sixteen strawberries. The two of them hid under the covers and ate them.
He'd thought he'd spend his whole life looking after his little brother. But one day, while he was playfully wrestling on the bed with his brother, who was now in his senior year of high school, his brother suddenly blushed.
Only then did he realize that his little brother had grown up, too.
One day, his brother would get married and start a family of his own. He wouldn't need his pine tree anymore.
On the first day after his college entrance exams, Xu Sicheng ate with his aunt's family. On the second, he ate with his brother.
His brother, who wasn't related to him by blood, had been his childhood role model and his adolescent fantasy.
Drunk, the two of them fell onto the bed together.
Xu Sicheng tugged off his tie and kissed his Adam's apple, only to be shoved away.
"Xu Sicheng, I'm your brother..." His voice was strange, almost afraid. It was hard to tell whether he feared Xu Sicheng or himself.
Xu Sicheng pinned the man in his suit and tie into a corner. "I stopped thinking of you as my brother a long, long time ago!"
"Stop treating me like a kid..."
*Impulsive puppy-like younger brother, top x doting older brother, bottom
*They aren't on the same household registration, and aren't related by blood
*Do not split or reverse the pairing; no dream shippers
Theme: Live with determination, and move toward the light
