Ke Bu had never imagined that Zhi Li would simply disappear like this, mercilessly taking Ke Bu’s entire world with him as punishment. Ke Bu understood that Zhi Li would not allow this stalemate to continue. For every day Ke Bu refused to choose, Zhi Li would refuse to appear.
He sat on the living-room sofa while the television filled the room with noise. Ke Bu kept his phone clenched tightly in his hand, as though convinced Zhi Li’s name would appear on the screen at any moment. Restless and agitated, his right foot bounced continuously. His mother was hanging clothes to dry on the balcony. Ke Bu watched Wu Qian’s back. Time had stolen away her youth, yet the burden of that lost youth had also crushed the years that followed. This was the life he had lived before meeting Zhi Li.
Ke Bu asked almost everyone, but no one knew where Zhi Li had gone. Nor could anyone contact Lan Yin or Zhi Zuo Si, who had both vanished without a trace since that day. He wanted to see Zhi Li. He had never known that longing could become so violent that even his internal organs would ache. At night, he lay awake in the darkness while memories crawled into every opening and lashed his skin. He wanted to sleep. His body was exhausted, yet his eyes stubbornly refused to close. He wanted to sleep, but how could he without Zhi Li? He wanted to cry, but without Zhi Li, who was he supposed to cry to?
He discovered how fragile he truly was, because there was no longer anything strong supporting him from within. For seven years, Zhi Li had held up his heart. Now, all that remained was an empty shell. Ke Bu curled into himself. Why was everyone forcing him to make this decision? Was it wrong to want to be with his parents? Was it wrong to want to be with Zhi Li? Why? He could not understand why two things that were not wrong on their own became wrong when placed together.
On the third day, Ke Bu went to the home belonging to Su You Yan’s relative, where they had once celebrated Zhi Li’s birthday. The instant he stood outside the door, an inexplicable certainty rose within him. Zhi Li was inside. He had to be. His heart pounded with urgency and pain as he knocked, but there was no answer.
“Zhi Li, I know you’re in there.” A long while passed. Ke Bu said nothing, and Zhi Li said nothing. Ke Bu stood outside with his head lowered and rested one hand against the door. “Zhi Li, let me see you. You say I’m cruel, but aren’t you being cruel too?”
The door opened. Zhi Li leaned against the frame, his gaze cold. “Have you chosen?”
“What do you expect me to do?”
“If you came here to argue, go back.” Zhi Li moved to close the door, but Ke Bu blocked it with one hand. “Do you know I’ve been searching everywhere for you? I knew you didn’t want to see me, but I came anyway, even throwing away my pride. What about you? Don’t you love me? Aren’t I your Ke Bu? I can give up my family. I really can give up everything.”
Zhi Li’s cold laugh dragged Ke Bu into a frozen abyss. Was a sneer all his words deserved? “Don’t say you’re doing it for me. Look carefully at what you’ve truly been clinging to. If you painfully abandon your wish only because you can’t leave me, then everything merely returns to where it began. Staying beside me while carrying that pain would be torture for me.”
Ke Bu stepped backward and stared at Zhi Li with wide eyes. He murmured, “Being with me is torture?”
Weariness covered Zhi Li’s beautiful face, as though he too had not slept all night. “How many times do I have to say it before you understand?”
“I don’t understand. I’ve never understood! But when have you ever understood me? Your family is different from mine. I have the right to suffer. What gives you the right to force me to forget? Do you think I don’t want to forget? If being with someone like me is torture for you, then why are we still together? I might as well choose that family!” Anger sharpened Ke Bu’s words. He was in pain—terrible pain—so he made Zhi Li suffer with him. He wanted to provoke Zhi Li. He wanted to see that Zhi Li cared, not that indifferent expression. He needed to know that he mattered to him.
Sure enough, he succeeded in infuriating Zhi Li. Zhi Li seized Ke Bu and dragged him inside, slamming the door before pinning him against the wall. “Then I’ll fucking show you what gives me the right!” Zhi Li shoved Ke Bu hard toward the table. Ke Bu’s thigh struck the corner, and pain made him knit his brows. Before he could speak, Zhi Li pinned both his hands with one hand and pulled down his trousers until they gathered around his knees. He opened his zipper and forced himself into Ke Bu’s unprepared body. Ke Bu’s brows tightened. “It hurts, Zhi Li… It hurts…”
Zhi Li did not stop moving. “You call this pain?” The envelope in Zhi Li’s hand entered Ke Bu’s vision. It was the one Ke Bu had given him on his birthday:
The two of them sat on the rooftop. Zhi Li leaned slightly backward with both hands braced behind him, looking up at the dark sky. Insects chirped endlessly, and the gentle breeze lifted the edge of his clothes and stirred Ke Bu’s eyelashes. Ke Bu sat with his knees drawn up and both hands resting on them. He checked the time. Only a few minutes remained before Zhi Li’s birthday, so he took an envelope from his bag. It was plain and simple, with only Mr. Black Bear standing in one corner. He placed the envelope inside Zhi Li’s bag. “What is this?” Zhi Li asked faintly, as though he did not expect an answer. “Ke Bu’s instruction manual and authorization certificate.” “At this point, shouldn’t you be giving me the warranty card?” “Are you saying you’ve used me for too long? Support domestic products, would you?” Ke Bu frowned, lowered his head, and lightly bit Zhi Li’s arm before quickly releasing it. Then he continued, “I put my wish and my entire world inside here. I’m giving them all to you for safekeeping. Don’t lose them.”
Ke Bu’s wish was his family. Ke Bu’s world was Zhi Li. Inside the envelope were photographs of Ke Bu with his parents when he was young and photographs of Zhi Li. Zhi Li held Ke Bu’s wish and his world in his hand, then threw them into Ke Bu’s face. “I can’t afford to safeguard your things.”
Ke Bu’s tears fell uncontrollably, scorching as they landed on the back of Zhi Li’s hand. Zhi Li’s anger drove into Ke Bu’s body, while pain and sorrow spread from the wound that was gradually beginning to bleed. The air was suffocating. Ke Bu’s thighs trembled, and his pale, powerless fingers clutched Zhi Li’s shoulders. “I’m sorry, Zhi Li. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things. I’m sorry. I can’t stop being with you. I can’t. I’m sorry. I’m the one who can’t live without you.”
“I don’t want your apology!” Zhi Li’s hoarse voice resounded through the room.
“But Zhi Li, what am I supposed to do? I regret becoming Ding Luo Yuan’s neighbor back then. I regret helping my mother deliver something and seeing that scene. I regret not stopping it at the time. There are so many things I regret.”
Zhi Li stopped moving. He bent over and looked at Ke Bu, his voice rushing toward him from every corner of the room. “Then, Ke Bu, do you also regret meeting me?”
Ke Bu did not know how he left. His entire body was rigid, his teeth clenched tightly, and small stains of blood had seeped through his trousers. No matter what had happened before, what was happening now, or what might happen in the future, the only thing about his parents’ divorce for which he had ever felt grateful was that it allowed him to meet Zhi Li that summer.
So how could he possibly regret it? That love had consumed every emotion Ke Bu possessed.
If one day he could no longer find Zhi Li, it would destroy him. It would be enough to hollow out all seven years of his life.
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