Standing on opposite sides of the doorway, Lu Xingyan and Jiang Wanyi stared awkwardly at each other.
More than ten years ago, when Lu Xingyan first learned that this auntie was going to become his stepmother and the two of them met for the first time, it had not been this awkward.
Jiang Wanyi had obviously seen everything—the album lying open on the floor was displaying the page where Lu Xingyan and Jiang Ji were kissing intimately.
As though Jiang Wanyi were the one who ought to feel guilty, she looked at Lu Xingyan in bewilderment. She neither picked up the album nor asked any questions.
Lu Xingyan guessed that she was thinking, What does this mean? Why are they kissing? He did not know whether the concept of homosexuality would immediately occur to her. Perhaps she had not processed it yet, or perhaps she already understood but was too embarrassed, ashamed, or even disgusted to say the word aloud.
“Auntie…” Lu Xingyan wanted to say something, but enormous panic was already close to drowning him. The moment he opened his mouth, his voice came out low and hoarse, without any confidence behind it.
Suddenly, another voice sounded behind him. “What’s going on? Why are you standing here like an idiot?”
—Lu Yong was home.
Lu Xingyan stood frozen in place, but he could not stop his father from coming over to see what was happening. Sensing that the atmosphere was strange, Lu Yong stepped around him into Jiang Ji’s room. He first saw his wife’s odd expression, then lowered his eyes and saw the album on the floor.
It was not an album at all. It was a bomb.
Lu Yong’s originally casual gaze stopped the moment he saw the photograph inside. After hesitating for several seconds, he asked, “What is this?”
Lu Yong bent down and picked up the album, instinctively flipping through the other pages. Lu Xingyan hurriedly snatched it out of his hands. “Stop looking!”
“…What’s going on?” Lu Yong frowned. “What is this? Lu Xingyan, what the hell are you doing?”
Lu Yong was not familiar with homosexuality. He still needed some time to process what he had just seen, but the increasingly complicated expression on Jiang Wanyi’s face showed that she understood.
“…It’s not what you think.”
Lu Xingyan clenched his trembling hand, crumpling the pages of the album beneath his grip. “I was just… messing around with Jiang Ji.”
His ears buzzed as though he could hear his blood flowing backward. His vision blurred slightly and his throat felt blocked as Lu Xingyan struggled to explain, “We just took a few pictures. It didn’t mean anything else.”
Holding the album, he turned to leave, intending to pretend none of this had happened. But neither parent was a fool, and Lu Xingyan had no room to argue his way out of it—he had been forced out of the closet. He had been exposed.
“Where do you think you’re going?!” Lu Yong’s voice rose, unusually stern. “Explain yourself, Lu Xingyan!”
“What’s there to explain?” Lu Xingyan said with his back to them. “You already saw it, didn’t you? They’re just photos. Have you never seen people take pictures before?”
“…”
The commotion upstairs was so strange that even the housekeeper, who had been cooking downstairs, came up curiously to see what was happening.
Lu Xingyan could not hide how lost he looked. So this was what coming out felt like—humiliating, being surrounded and scrutinized, with no way to explain himself.
“Who the hell takes photos like this?” Lu Yong suddenly reached for the album in his hands, wanting a clearer look, but Lu Xingyan refused to give it to him.
“Give it here!” Lu Yong’s face darkened. “If you’ve got nothing to hide, why are you hiding it?”
Lu Xingyan still refused. During the struggle, the album slipped from his hands and flew across the room with a smack. The housekeeper hurriedly dodged out of the way in fright, then went back downstairs to continue cooking.
There was no point denying it anymore. Lu Xingyan strode over, picked up the album, and shoved it at Lu Yong as though he did not care at all. “Look! If you want to see it, then look! Go ahead and stare all you want!”
Lu Xingyan was always losing his temper with his father, but even he rarely acted this aggressively and arrogantly, as though Lu Yong were the one who had done something wrong. “It’s just two men kissing! Never seen anything so unusual before, huh?! Then look! Look carefully! I’m gay. Happy now?!”
“…”
Lu Yong stared at him dumbfounded. Jiang Wanyi’s hand trembled where it rested against the doorframe. Fortunately, neither of them had a heart condition.
Lu Xingyan used reckless defiance to conceal his panic. “Why aren’t you looking anymore? Look! That’s me kissing Jiang Ji! Can you understand it? If there’s anything else you don’t understand, keep asking. I’ll explain it all to you properly!”
“—Lu Xingyan!”
Lu Yong roared at him, but his unfilial son turned and went downstairs as though he could no longer be bothered with him.
Lu Yong and Jiang Wanyi followed him into the living room, only to see Lu Xingyan sit down in one corner of the sofa and pick up a pack of cigarettes—the one Lu Yong had casually left on the coffee table when he came home.
Lu Xingyan pulled out a cigarette and tried to light it, but his hands were shaking so badly that he could not even hold the lighter steady. Besides, he did not know how to smoke. He was simply so panicked that he instinctively wanted to find something, anything, to occupy his hands.
The cigarette never lit. The lighter fell from his hand. Lu Xingyan looked up at the two parents opposite him, whose expressions were extraordinarily complicated, and suddenly saw Jiang Wanyi lowering her head to send a message on her phone—most likely to Jiang Ji.
“Don’t contact him!” Lu Xingyan shot to his feet. “My brother doesn’t know anything. This is all my fault!”
Jiang Wanyi paused, but the message had already been sent. The look she gave Lu Xingyan was impossible to describe, so complicated and chaotic that no single emotion could be picked out clearly, but understanding and support were obviously not among the countless feelings in her eyes.
Jiang Wanyi and Jiang Ji resembled each other somewhat. Although her temperament was gentler, when she fell silent she still carried an intimidating pressure that was remarkably similar to his coldness.
Lu Xingyan had never been afraid of his parents before. Now, suddenly, he was. He did not want Jiang Ji to be dragged into this and have to endure his mother’s reproachful gaze too, so he tried his best to explain, “I’m the only one who likes my brother. He doesn’t know. We took those pictures because… I tricked him!”
It was difficult to invent an excuse, and Lu Xingyan’s words came out incoherently. “He lost a bet to me, so he went along with taking those pictures for fun… He was only joking around. He doesn’t know I’m interested in him! He doesn’t like men, and he doesn’t like me. You… don’t blame him.”
If you’re going to blame someone, blame me.
All the strength seemed to leave Lu Xingyan’s body as he collapsed back onto the sofa.
He did not dare think about whether things between him and Jiang Ji were over now, whether they had completely lost their chance. This was no one else’s fault. He could only blame himself for failing to keep the secret, but as long as they maintained a clandestine relationship, there would always be a day when they were discovered. If it was not today, it would be tomorrow.
The only alternative was breaking up. Since that was the case, then so be it. Let him bear it alone. There was no need to drag Jiang Ji down with him.
“I’m not lying.” Lu Xingyan braced his elbows on his knees and covered his face. “Please stop asking. Since you already know, just leave me alone. Can we pretend none of this ever happened?”
“…”
His voice choked slightly. Curled defensively into the corner of the sofa, he refused to raise his head. “Maybe homosexuality is hard for you to accept, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I just like men. What am I supposed to do?”
At this point, Lu Xingyan no longer cared what expressions Lu Yong and Jiang Wanyi wore. Haltingly, he fabricated an explanation, saying that he had been gay from birth, hopelessly so, that he had liked men for many years, and that Jiang Ji was neither the first nor anyone especially significant. Jiang Ji was simply good-looking, so Lu Xingyan had shamelessly taken advantage of him.
He cried as he spoke, suppressing his voice as much as possible so no one could hear it.
Oil crackled loudly in the kitchen as the housekeeper stir-fried the food. She knew perfectly well no one was going to eat, but stopping halfway through to watch would only make things more awkward, so she pretended not to know anything and silently continued with her work.
Listening to those sounds and smelling the food, Lu Xingyan felt himself wrapped in the unique atmosphere of home, only for it to scatter like mist blown apart by the wind. He forgot where he had left off in his fabricated story and paused to take a breath. Then he suddenly heard the front door open.
There was no one else who would be coming home at this hour except Jiang Ji. Lu Xingyan’s entire body stiffened, instinctively sensing that the real disaster was about to arrive.
It was a workday, and Jiang Ji had rushed back from the company. He was still wearing his work suit, without a tie, his phone and car keys clenched together in his right hand as he changed his shoes in the entryway and walked inside.
Lu Xingyan wiped his face clean and finally raised his head. “Is there anything else you want to ask?”
As though he had not heard Jiang Ji arrive, he continued speaking to Lu Yong and Jiang Wanyi. “Actually, I haven’t done anything wrong, have I? Compared with those rich second-generation guys who change girlfriends every day, my tastes are just a little unusual. I like men. I’ve hidden it well. I’ve never embarrassed you before, and I won’t in the future either. I’m very—”
“Lu Xingyan.” Jiang Ji walked over to him.
Lu Xingyan acted as though he had not heard. “I know my limits, and I know my place. If the three of you really can’t stand having a gay person around, I’ll move out. I won’t come home unless it’s necessary, so you won’t have to be disgusted by me—”
“What nonsense are you talking about?”
Jiang Ji glanced at the parents across from them. Jiang Wanyi’s message on WeChat had been vague, but combined with the scene in front of him, Jiang Ji could more or less guess what had happened.
Things had developed even worse than he had expected. Even if they were going to come out, it should never have happened in such a brutal way.
“Jiang Ji, come here.” Jiang Wanyi called to him. “Explain this.”
Before Jiang Ji could speak, Lu Xingyan raised his voice. “What does he have to explain? Haven’t I made myself clear enough? He doesn’t know anything. I played him! I’ve hated him since I was a kid! I did it on purpose to mess with him!”
“And you have the nerve to say that!”
Lu Yong cursed him, his face as black as the bottom of a pot. He and Jiang Wanyi were half-convinced and half-doubtful, unable to figure out what kind of relationship these two children actually had. But since they could not dig the truth out of Lu Xingyan, they could only ask Jiang Ji.
“I—”
Jiang Ji had barely opened his mouth when Lu Xingyan interrupted again. “Don’t say anything. You don’t need to cover for me.”
“…”
“What annoys me most is the way you act like my older brother every day and try to discipline me. I’ll do whatever I want. Whether I like men or women has nothing to do with you, so can you just shut up?”
Lu Xingyan had already done everything he could. There was nothing more he could do for Jiang Ji. Jiang Ji was so smart that he would certainly understand what Lu Xingyan meant. It would be easy for him to clear himself of any involvement—all he had to do was remain silent and stand on their parents’ side.
Perhaps that had been Jiang Ji’s plan all along. Maybe he had only hesitated because of the little bit of love and reluctance he felt toward Lu Xingyan, but no matter what, he would abandon him in the end.
Then they might as well cut through the mess cleanly. There was no point dragging it out any longer.
Lu Xingyan picked up the lighter from the floor and clenched it tightly. In truth, he did not even know what he was holding. He simply needed something in his hand, any object at all, like a piece of driftwood keeping him afloat on the surface of his own mind.
He did not dare look at Jiang Ji’s face, afraid he would see relief there—or approval, satisfaction, gratitude.
He stood and headed toward the entryway, wanting to leave this place where he could barely breathe. He had no idea where he would go, but he needed to get out first.
“Lu Xingyan.”
Someone called from behind him. Lu Xingyan could not tell whether it was his father or his brother. His head spun, his ears rang, and he felt as though he were dying.
“—Lu Xingyan!”
A force caught him from behind. Lu Xingyan staggered and was suddenly pulled into a familiar embrace.
He froze slightly. Turning his face, he brushed against Jiang Ji’s hair, the cool strands making him shiver. Jiang Ji drew a deep breath. Rather than speaking to him, he wrapped an arm around him and turned them both toward their parents.
“Mom, Uncle, Lu Xingyan and I love each other.”
Leave a Reply