Mai Ding was just about to leave when An Zi Yan caught his wrist. “Hey. It’s the last day anyway, so I’ll let you kiss me at school.” His tone was infuriating, yet to Mai Ding his expression looked almost like someone making one last casual, willful request. Mai Ding pursed his lips and moved closer. He was just about to give An Zi Yan a halfhearted kiss on the mouth when a palm blocked him. “Who said you could kiss my mouth?” Mai Ding clenched his fist and suppressed the urge to lunge forward and bite An Zi Yan to death. Graduation day. Don’t argue with him. Absolutely do not argue with him.
“Then where am I supposed to kiss you?”
An Zi Yan pointed at his neck. “Here is enough.”
“Fine.” Mai Ding practically forced the word through his teeth. Standing on tiptoe, he sucked a conspicuous red mark onto An Zi Yan’s neck in revenge, then glared at him. “Anything else?” An Zi Yan waved a hand at him as though dismissing a servant. “You can go now.”
Endure it! It was his last day at school. He needed to leave behind some beautiful memories. Mai Ding comforted himself over and over while privately wishing he could go home, scrub the toilet with An Zi Yan’s toothbrush, and then put it back.
Swept into the auditorium with the other students, Mai Ding quickly found his class section. First he apologized to the class monitor and the girl from earlier. He had still been clinging to one tiny hope, but judging by their expressions, they truly had known nothing. That last bit of hope crashed and burned. An Zi Yan really had not arranged any prank for him, and Mai Ding had spent the entire morning humiliating himself in a one-man show. He sat down but could not find An Zi Yan anywhere. Was An Zi Yan so busy preparing for his job interview that he did not even have time for graduation? Mai Ding did not hear a single word of what the principal was saying onstage until a resonant voice filled the auditorium. “Next, we invite graduating student representative An Zi Yan to speak.”
That name was the broken alarm clock inside Mai Ding’s heart. No matter how many times he switched it off, it never stopped making noise. He raised his head and could not help narrowing his eyes. Was the light behind An Zi Yan too bright, or was An Zi Yan himself too dazzling? Mai Ding no longer had the attention to decide. His collar seemed deliberately left slightly open, exposing the red mark on his neck to everyone below. Whispers immediately spread through the audience, and Mai Ding’s classmates turned complicated looks toward him.
“Mai Ding, you don’t have to be that desperate. Everyone knows you and An Zi Yan are together. Did you really have to leave a hickey on his neck in case somebody forgot?”
“That possessiveness is terrifying.” Even the class monitor patted Mai Ding’s shoulder and kindly reminded him, “You should show a little restraint at school.”
“If you want to show off your relationship, at least think about how An Zi Yan feels.”
“I saw An Zi Yan earlier and there was nothing on his neck. Mai Ding, is the reason you were acting so weird today because you’ve been deprived too long? You even flirted with me earlier. What a creature ruled by his lower body.” The girl Mai Ding had insulted before immediately returned the favor.
All the blood drained from Mai Ding’s face, then rushed straight back into it. He desperately tried to defend the Academic Representative image he had worked so hard to build. “How could that be?! He suddenly grabbed me and told me to kiss his neck. I didn’t do it willingly!!” It was the truth, but not only would nobody else believe him, Mai Ding felt like even he would not believe it. Nearly everyone at school knew about him and An Zi Yan already, and now the final impression Mai Ding would leave behind was that of some lust-starved deviant who could not even make it through graduation day without sucking on An Zi Yan’s neck?! After guarding himself for so long, he had somehow stepped straight into another hole An Zi Yan dug. Mai Ding wanted to yank off his belt, hang it from the nearest available structure, stick his head through it, and bid a tearful farewell to the university. Then he wanted to charge onto the stage, seize the principal by the collar, and demand an explanation. Mai Ding, a rule-abiding model student, was sitting below, so why on earth had they chosen An Zi Yan as the graduating representative?! More than anything, he wanted to button An Zi Yan’s collar!
“I think many of you aren’t ready to leave school. You aren’t ready to leave your deskmate, to leave that person beside you, to leave your teachers, to leave the classrooms filled with memories and the noisy youth you spent here.” An Zi Yan’s voice was already pleasant enough on its own; amplified through the microphone, even that pleasantness seemed magnified, drawing everyone in. An Zi Yan swept his gaze over the audience. It had to be Mai Ding’s imagination. There were so many people below. How could An Zi Yan possibly find him with a single glance? Stop acting lovestruck. Impossible. Besides, the person onstage had probably been replaced with a special-effects version of An Zi Yan. How could artsy words like those possibly come out of his mouth?
An Zi Yan continued. “Whether you’re ready or not is your own problem. It has nothing to do with me.” Fine. Mai Ding withdrew everything he had just thought. That was An Zi Yan. What kind of speech was this?! He was supposed to say something encouraging and positive to boost everyone’s graduation morale!
“I, An Zi Yan, only need to be responsible for this one.” An Zi Yan lifted his hand, his long index finger pointing in Mai Ding’s direction. H-he was saying what in front of this many people?! Stop messing around!
“No matter how annoying your nagging is, how much your personality resembles an idiot’s, or what kind of useless wreck you become after entering society, I can’t prepare myself to leave you. So don’t be afraid. I’m here.” Were there no teachers or other people willing to stop him? Did none of them realize this was a graduation ceremony? Could somebody tell Mai Ding whether he was supposed to be angry or smile?
“What kind of love confession is that? Not touching at all. Not even a little.” Mai Ding muttered under his breath, fingers gripping the seams of his trousers so nobody would discover he was lying. Then, to everyone’s surprise, An Zi Yan lightly jumped down from the stage. A teacher took his place at the microphone and coughed softly, trying to continue the ceremony, but everyone’s attention stayed elsewhere. Was somebody secretly filming an idol drama? Something that did not seem capable of existing in reality was happening right inside Mai Ding’s reality. An Zi Yan was walking toward him. What was he supposed to do? When An Zi Yan finally stopped in front of him, he tilted his head slightly, an unreadable expression on his face. “What do you think I’m going to do?”
“You’d better do nothing!!” So he was not coming over to kiss him. Mai Ding felt embarrassed by his own self-importance. An Zi Yan leaned forward slightly. “You don’t want me to do anything, so I’m going to do it anyway.” His fingers brushed Mai Ding’s left cheek. Mai Ding tried to push him away, but the hand he had barely lifted was seized firmly by the wrist. An Zi Yan kissed Mai Ding’s left cheek, then moved to his ear. “We graduated, Mai Ding.”
Mai Ding’s chaotic brain could think of only one thing: no matter how many erasers he used, he would never be able to erase this graduation ceremony.
This did not fit An Zi Yan’s usual style at all. Wasn’t he supposed to torment Mai Ding first and then finish with some move that made forgiveness ridiculously easy? Mai Ding could not digest everything at once. The calories called love inside his body were about to fatten him into the heaviest man in the world. There had to be something vicious coming next. Definitely. Eyes wide, he scanned An Zi Yan suspiciously. “What are you about to say next? That I’ve got an enoki mushroom down there? That I suffer from premature ejaculation? Impotence? Don’t think I don’t know!”
“Why are you revealing the real condition of your own body?”
“I am not!!” Mai Ding protested. An Zi Yan shrugged. “Relax. I’m not going to tell anyone today.”
“You already said plenty onstage! You called me useless and an idiot and everything else.”
“I was just saying whatever came to mind. Who else but you announces his own secrets?”
“I was speaking hypothetically!”
An Zi Yan shrugged again and sat down beside him without looking over. “If that’s how you want to comfort yourself, I have no objection, Mr. Enoki.”
“Stop making up nicknames for me!” The moment Mai Ding said it, he noticed whispers running through the class, and it was not hard to pick out words like enoki mushroom, impotence, and premature ejaculation. Finished. He was truly finished now. His glorious reputation was completely gone. He sat down furiously and, while he was at it, jabbed An Zi Yan furiously with his elbow.
Music filled the auditorium again as a video began playing. Images from the past up through the present flashed across the screen: familiar ones, barely familiar ones, strangers, every school gala and performance. Mai Ding even saw himself wearing the old yellow ox costume from the play about the Cowherd and Weaver Girl. All of it had to be left behind. The title of student would be removed. There would be no more class bells arranging his time. Exams and grades would no longer be things that gave him headaches… Only when it was time to leave did he realize how many things there were to leave.
From the corner of his eye, he secretly watched An Zi Yan. An Zi Yan merely lounged against the back of his chair, the screen’s shifting light and images flickering continuously in his dark pupils. Was he watching Mai Ding from the corner of his eye too? Mai Ding wondered. Then he noticed An Zi Yan’s shoulder move slightly. One hand came out of his pocket and settled palm-up on his thigh. Accident or invitation? There was no time to think. Mai Ding placed his own hand over it and held on tight.
Was making Mai Ding’s heart rise and fall like this An Zi Yan’s real prank?
If it was, then no matter how carefully Mai Ding guarded himself, he would never be able to defend against it.