This is an English translation of the novel Miracle: Dear to me by author Lin Pei Yu, which was adapted into the drama series Kiseki: Dear to me. This translation is done primarily from the published Traditional Chinese e-book version of this novel available to buy from Google Play but also from other Simplified Chinese versions of the novel I’ve read online. If you read this translation I would strongly urge you to support the author and buy this book if you can. It’s not expensive and it’s not difficult to buy.
- Title: Miracle: Dear to me
- Author: Lin Pei Yu
- Translated into English by: aphellion
- Status: Complete
- Chapters: 11 + 3 extras
- Rating: R18/NC17
- Genre: BL; Romance
- Note for drama viewers: Chen Yi and Eddie are only very minor characters. And Ai Di is Eddie — Bai Zongyi comments at one point in the novel that it’s an English name.
Detailed Warnings (possible mild spoilers)
age difference (five years); younger top/older bottom; profanity (mostly Eddie); past child abuse; sex with a minor (but over age of consent); dubious consent; blackmail; enemies to lovers (sort of); rich male lead; poor male lead; amnesia; traumatic brain injury; disability; smart male leads; gang related violence; tiny bit of fat shaming; mild homophobia; serious injury; serious illness (not main characters); death (not main characters); shitty parents + 1 supportive parent; supportive siblings; slight drug/alcohol abuse; dubious male anatomy; no lube; unsafe sex; misuse of baking ingredients; horrific food hygiene violations.
BUT NOT GROOMING – I’ve seen this relationship dismissed as being grooming but it is not, it’s just two lonely people falling in love. So if that had put you off from reading (or watching the drama series), please don’t let it – it is not grooming. Bai Zongyi is a minor when they meet, but Fan Zherui does not groom him. Anyone who wants to disagree with me over this can go clutch their pearls somewhere else.
Grooming is something that’s done deliberately for financial or sexual motives; it’s abusive and the groomer doesn’t love the person they groom. Fan Zherui is willing to die for Bai Zongyi. Fan Zherui’s super rich, he doesn’t need Bai Zongyi’s non-existent wealth. Bai Zongyi is the one who actively pursues a romantic relationship with Fan Zherui, whereas Fan Zherui wants to be his friend. Please do not diminish what grooming actually is by pretending it’s in any way similar to a mutually loving relationship. The end.
Special Chapter: Us
Fan Zherui arrived at Taipei Tao Yuan International Airport. After clearing immigration he left claiming his luggage and other trivial matters to his subordinates, walked straight out of the airport, and got into the pre-booked private car.
“Please hurry up, thank you.”
Three weeks. Twenty one days. Since he had moved to Taichung it was the first time he and Bai Zongyi had been apart for so long.
Counting the time until he returned home, they video-called every night afraid that — because of Bai Zongyi’s memory impairment due to his injury — he would forget they were together again. Although they had been living together for six months, Bai Zongyi still frequently forgot this and ran off back to his old home.
This time, would he be at their home? Or at his old home? Fan Zherui thought mischievously that he didn’t plan on calling Bai Zongyi to remind him, because on the nights that Bai Zongyi found he had returned to the wrong house he would let him demand anything of him out of guilt…
If he runs off to the wrong place tonight, I want…Fan Zherui thought about it and smiled to himself.
That’s weird…the driver in the front caught sight in the rear-view mirror of the strange smile on the passenger in the backseat. Feeling anxious, he couldn’t help but swallow his saliva and try to suppress the unease in his heart.
“Speed up a little.”
“Yes, sir!” He pressed the accelerator all the way down.
“Don’t exceed the speed limit, safety comes first.”
“Yes, sir!” Sir, don’t you think you’re being contradictory?
Not realizing that his orders had provoked the older man to unspoken criticism, Fan Zherui lowered his head and, from his pocket, took out a jewellery box. He opened it to see a pair of steel pendants – a ship’s wheel and anchor – and gave a knowing smile.
Drawn to the rings in the display window of a boutique shop, he originally wanted to buy them. But realizing that a ring wasn’t convenient to wear with Bai Zongyi’s job, he asked the shop owner to change the original design idea into pendants, hoping to give him a pleasant surprise.
By the night of the fourteenth day, due to missing him being at his side, he would invariably wake up in the middle of the night; determining that he was in a hotel room, only after ascertaining that the two of them being back together again wasn’t a dream could he rest assured and go back to sleep.
Four years. 1681 days lost. 1681 nights of relying on sedatives and alcohol. To this day he still had the lingering fear in his heart and habitually woke in the middle of the night to confirm that the other man was lying by his side before he could set his mind to rest.
Bai Zongyi was aware of it too and, when he first began to quit the drugs and alcohol, would always hold him as he slept. Later, even if he forgot the reason why, his body had formed the habit.
The one hour and forty-three minute journey on Google Maps from Taipei Tao Yuan International Airport to Taichung was, at Fan Zherui’s urging, reduced by thirty minutes.
“I’m back.” Fan Zherui opened the door to their home and entered the house—
As expected, no one as there. The man who had said before he departed that he would close the store early and come back on the day he returned still hadn’t arrived home.
Fan Zherui wasn’t in a hurry to search for him. After entering the house, he went to place the jewellery box in the drawer of the bedside table by his side of the bed and found the booklet Bai Zongyi used to record things that happened lying softly on the bed.
“No wonder he hasn’t come back yet.” Being without this booklet, it was as if Bai Zongyi was without half of his memory.
Fan Zherui laughed in spite of himself and picked up the booklet, wanting to read the little pieces of his lover’s life over these two weeks. He randomly flipped it open, his heart rate increasing involuntarily.
A-Rui, today is the sixth day since you left. I made a new strawberry pie and the reaction to the trial sale was very good. When you come back I’ll make it for you…Today Jingyu and Uncle Wang’s son from up the alley were arguing again…
…Fan Zherui couldn’t stop himself from flipping back to the first day after he left. The first thing he saw was the farewell note he’d left behind.
A-Rui, I didn’t see you when I woke up and I thought I’d accidentally gone into someone else’s house. Seeing the photo of us at the bedside and the note you left behind, I felt relieved.
You said it’s rare for you to wake and find me still sleeping, so you left a note telling me to wait for you to come back home. I remembered why I insist on waking earlier than you, so I’ll write it down while I remember to remind myself.
I wake up earlier so my first sight is you, to confirm you’re back by my side and that I can be at peace…
A-Rui, I miss you.
Fan Zherui settled himself and slowly sat on the side of the bed, unable to resist keeping on flipping to the next page—
A-Rui, today is the second day since you left. I’m still not used to not seeing you when I wake up. I sorted out breakfast by going downstairs to Mei Er Mei1. You know, without you, the kitchen at home is just decoration…
A-Rui, on the third day after you left there was rare heavy rainfall in Taichung and business in the store was slow. It gave me more time that I could think of new strawberry dessert to make. When you get back, I’ll surprise you…
This guy…he wasn’t treating this booklet as if it was him, and talking to it, was he?
Fan Zherui suddenly felt a feeling of happiness and sadness, sweet and sour, rising up from the depth of his heat into his throat, tightening his throat and making his nose ache. This feeling rushed to his eyes, making them red and prickly, causing them to well up with tears.
He forced himself to keep reading, to see how Bai Zongyi spent every day of those three weeks without him.
A-Rui, it’s the fourth day. Although I look glad every night when we video-call, I’m actually not happy. Seeing you but being unable to touch you…instead I feel more lonely. Jingyu said I’m just like a cat looking at an aquarium: I want to eat the fish inside, but I’m afraid of the water.
I’m not afraid of the water, I’m afraid I will suddenly forget the way to find you.
From time to time, I will feel sad that I have a memory impairment that makes me unable fully remember everything I do with you; but more often I’m thankful that I still remember our relationship before my injury…
Reading this, Fan Zherui wiped away the tears that welled up with a single hand, took a deep breath to hold back his emotions, and continued reading.
The fifth day, the sixth day, the seventh day…Every day started with A-Rui and ended with A-Rui, I miss you. This man put him first, from before until now it was always this way…
Turning to yesterday, the twenty-first day, he finally realized why the booklet was placed on the bed.
It was already written to the last page. Even if he carried it with him, he couldn’t use it to record events…
In the face of Bai Zongyi’s booklet, his pendants were laughably insignificant.
Just at that moment, the door opened, with Bai Zongyi looking surprised to see him.
“You aren’t back until tomorrow—”
Before Bai Zongyi could finish speaking, he was pounced on and pressed against the door panel, his lips — parted in greeting — kissed forcefully. Although confused, he wouldn’t be a man if he didn’t respond when the person he missed so longingly threw himself into his arms. His puzzled expression was pushed aside as his desire ignited, his breath being short due to the kiss.
Fan Zherui tasted strawberry, rum, and the faint flavor of mint in Bai Zongyi’s mouth as he held him around the waist and brought him to the bed.
Bai Zongyi bent his knees as he was pushed into the side of the bed. Lying back on the bed, he watched as Fan Zherui knelt a single knee between his legs and looked down at him from his high position.
It seemed he’d remembered the wrong day again… “You’re back?” Bai Zongyi asked, hand gently caressing his lover who he hadn’t seen for almost a month.
“M-hm, I’m back.” Fan Zherui lightly pinched Bai Zongyi’s chin, his gaze carefully moving across his forehead, brow and eyes inch by inch.
Twenty one days and twenty hours without seeing him, he’d missed him.
Bai Zongyi hooked an arm around Fan Zherui’s neck and one around his waist, pressing him down onto his body. “Have you eaten?”
“Not yet, what about you?”
“Me neither but…I don’t really want to eat, do you?”
“I don’t either, I want to eat you first…” Fan Zherui said affectionately, his lips almost touching Bai Zongyi’s.
Bai Zongyi smiled. “What a coincidence. Me too.”
“The next time I’m away on a business trip, I’ll pack you and take you, okay?”
“Okay…” The word of agreement ended entangled between their lips.
Bai Zongyi set about pulling undone the tie of the man above him, then the first button on his shirt…Fan Zherui reached out a hand and slipped it under the t-shirt of the man beneath him, touching his lean waistline. The two men moved in unison, their pace slow but also, with tacit agreement, gradually accelerating until eventually they were pulling passionately at each other. Their caresses anxious due to their longing, and ravaging due to their anxiety, the pair heard the sound of fabric tearing apart. They were incapable of stopping, having been separated for twenty one days and twenty hours…
Early the next morning, Bai Zongyi opened his eyes and, seeing his lover lying on his side still sleeping soundly in his arms, gave a satisfied smile.
Bai Zongyi reached out to touch the still weary expression on Fan Zherui’s face, and then along the side of his neck to explore his naked body under the bedsheet, very carefully feeling the smooth skin beneath his palm. Occasionally he would touch the ridges and depressions of uneven scars and tenderly rub over them lightly a few times.
After keeping himself busy for a while, and confirming that he had done a good job of cleaning him up, Bai Zongyi was willing to get out of bed.
Pah! The booklet made a soft noise as it fell down.
Bai Zongyi picked it up, flipping it open out of habit. He glanced at it at casually, stunned when he focused his gaze on—
I miss you too, Zongyi.
Bai Zongyi flipped through every day that he’d waited, and after every line of A-Rui, I miss you Fan Zherui had added this sentence. Arriving at the last page of the twenty-first day, on the inside cover was not only Fan Zherui’s response, but also words that he’d left that moved Bai Zongyi so that his nose stung and his eyes burned—
I’ve decided, in future you have to accompany me on all business trips.
Wherever you are is my home.
As long as I return to your side, I’m returning to our home.
- A western-style breakfast restaurant chain in Taiwan ↩︎
ap.hellion 
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