“Jiang Ji, are you going to move out and live on your own someday?”
Five years ago, one afternoon, Jiang Ji—who was usually so rarely home that he was almost impossible to catch—came back from school to look for something. After rummaging through drawers and cabinets until he found it, he had barely stepped outside when Lu Xingyan blocked him at the front door.
“I’m asking you something,” Lu Xingyan said. “Answer me.”
“Why would I move out?” Jiang Ji asked, baffled.
“Mm, because that guy next door moved out.” Lu Xingyan mentioned one of their neighbors by name. “Isn’t he getting married? He bought a new place, so he won’t be living with his parents anymore.”
“…”
Jiang Ji could not understand what that had to do with him. He still had class later and was in a hurry to get back to school, so he had little patience for Lu Xingyan. “Isn’t that perfectly normal? A lot of people buy a marital home and live separately after getting married.”
Jiang Ji headed outside with a tote bag in hand, but Lu Xingyan relentlessly followed him. There was a subway station near the villa neighborhood, only a two- or three-minute walk away, yet Lu Xingyan followed him all the way to its entrance. “What about you? Do you want to buy a marital home too?”
“…” What kind of nonsense was this? Jiang Ji was speechless. “I don’t even have a girlfriend. Who knows what’ll happen in the future?”
At the time, Jiang Ji had not yet become aware of his sexual orientation and did not know that he would never marry a woman. But he had never even considered marriage, whereas high-schooler Lu Xingyan was somehow already thinking far enough ahead to worry about Jiang Ji’s lifelong future for him.
“Just imagine it. If you got married, would you move out?”
Jiang Ji had no idea what Lu Xingyan was trying to get at and finally gave him a serious look. “What are you scheming now?”
“Nothing. Aren’t we talking about something serious?”
“…”
Lu Xingyan was actually calling himself “serious.” Yet, strangely enough, he really did look unusually solemn, even somewhat nervous and heavy-hearted, as though Jiang Ji’s answer were vitally important to him and could profoundly affect him.
Jiang Ji did not understand. “What do you mean? Are you that eager to get rid of me?”
Dragged into the hypothetical, Jiang Ji instinctively thought about what the future might actually look like. “It’s too early to think about this now, but if I get married and you get married too, then two new families will be added to this one. If we have children after that, that’s several more people… Our villa is big, but even a big house gets crowded when there are too many people, and that makes conflicts more likely. It probably would be better to move out.”
“…”
“If you want to stay here, then I’ll leave. I won’t fight you for territory.”
Jiang Ji deliberately went along with Lu Xingyan because he did not want to keep arguing with him. Yet despite Jiang Ji being so accommodating, Lu Xingyan did not look happy at all. His silent face seemed deathly pale beneath the blazing sun, as though he had suffered some enormous injury.
“If you move out, your mom will be really sad, you ungrateful wretch.” Lu Xingyan suddenly started attacking him personally. “Can you stop thinking only about yourself and consider how your family feels too?”
Jiang Ji: “…”
Did this person want him to move out or not?
Whatever Lu Xingyan actually wanted, his inability to speak like a normal human being was infuriating. Jiang Ji was in a hurry to get back to school and could not be bothered tangling with him. He did not even argue back and simply turned to leave.
Lu Xingyan grabbed him. “I’m not finished.”
“Then say it. Hurry up.” Jiang Ji said impatiently, “You have one last minute.”
He said Lu Xingyan had a minute, but he did not stop walking at all, heading straight down the escalator and into the subway station.
Lu Xingyan continued following closely behind him. Even then, he already had that stubborn persistence that made him impossible to shake off. “If you move away, we’ll practically be strangers afterward. We might not even see each other a few times in an entire year.”
“…”
Jiang Ji froze and looked at Lu Xingyan in surprise. “Wouldn’t that be great? Don’t tell me you actually want to see me?”
Lu Xingyan seemed to be in genuine pain, even his breathing trembling slightly. Yet for once, he did not argue. Miraculously, something decent finally came out of his mouth. “You’re still my… family. I want our family to stay whole. It’d be best if none of us separated.”
—It would be best if they never separated.
Jiang Ji had laughed when he heard that back then. Lu Xingyan really did still have the mentality of a child. Although Jiang Ji himself had not yet thought about marriage, even he knew that people inevitably separated from their families once they grew up.
Becoming independent was the process of leaving one’s old home and establishing a new one. How could he possibly stay beside his parents forever?
He never could have imagined that the wish Lu Xingyan had casually invented back then to conceal his secret love would actually come true.
The only prerequisite was convincing Lu Yong and Jiang Wanyi to allow them to be together.
“Bro, have you noticed that us keeping it in the family actually has some benefits for our parents?”
Lu Xingyan suddenly said this the next morning as they were leaving the hotel.
Jiang Ji humbly asked, “What benefits?”
“For example, no mother-in-law and daughter-in-law conflicts.” Lu Xingyan was driving Jiang Ji to work, and his spirits were far better than the day before; even his voice had gone up a pitch. “And since we can’t have children, they’re spared the trouble of raising grandchildren and worrying about their education too. They should be thanking us.”
Jiang Ji: “…”
It made perfect sense. Unfortunately, Lu Xingyan only dared spout such nonsense in front of him and would never have the nerve to say it to Lu Yong and Jiang Wanyi.
Jiang Ji shook his head with a smile and checked the messages on his phone from the passenger seat. He had assumed that after a night had passed, Jiang Wanyi would send him something, but when he opened WeChat, there was not a single new message.
After thinking for a moment, Jiang Ji took the initiative to greet her and asked when she would feel ready to have a proper talk with him. He told her he would come whenever she called.
But after the message was sent, Jiang Wanyi did not reply.
Jiang Ji’s mood, which had only just begun to improve, sank again. Lu Xingyan took his hand. “Don’t worry. Your mom isn’t going to ignore you forever. She already said she wanted to talk to you, so sooner or later she’ll come to you. Just focus on work today and put all this out of your mind. Wait for my news, okay?”
“…”
Lu Xingyan was becoming increasingly practiced at comforting people, and there was even a hint of deliberate maturity in the way he spoke. Jiang Ji almost laughed again. “Okay. Then drop me off at the company and go rent an apartment first. Do you know what kind of place to look for?”
“I do. I’ve already chosen the area.” Lu Xingyan pulled out his phone and showed him the research he had stayed up doing the night before because he could not sleep. “We’ll live near your company so it’s convenient for you to get to work. I already shortlisted several places online. I’ll go see them in person later, and if there’s nothing wrong with them, I’ll sign the lease right away. You don’t need to worry about any of it.”
Renting an apartment was only a small matter, yet Lu Xingyan inexplicably found in it a sense that their love was finally becoming something tangible and real: renting a home, buying daily necessities, then setting up the streaming room and bedroom.
—These were his responsibilities. Even without their parents or the housekeeper, he could take good care of Jiang Ji, let his brother focus on work without worrying, make sure there was food waiting when he came home, and see that he slept well at night.
What did that make him? A devoted spouse? No, the head of the household.
Having found a role he liked, Lu Xingyan became even more motivated. After dropping Jiang Ji off at the company, the two of them kissed goodbye in the car.
His feelings were too intense to express through words alone. Lu Xingyan kissed him again and again, reluctant to part. “Bro, remember to miss me.”
“Mm.” Jiang Ji took the initiative to press his cheek lightly against Lu Xingyan’s, not finding the sentiment too sappy at all. “Go on.”
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