Haiqing went inside first. A moment later came the slam of a door loud enough to make every neighbor nearby want to call the police.
Pinjun had not said a single word. From the moment he saw Haiqing kissing Yan Fei in the car outside, to Haiqing getting out and signaling with his eyes for Yan Fei to leave first, even as they entered the apartment, he had remained silent. Only after they were home did he finally lose control and slam the door to vent his fury.
Pinjun felt an endless rage swelling in his chest, almost enough to burst it open.
After slamming the door, those eyes that were normally so gentle fixed on Haiqing as if bloodshot, almost ferocious. Yet beneath the anger, desolation slowly seeped out, leaving Haiqing unable even to open his mouth in his own defense.
“When did the two of you start?” Pinjun asked hoarsely.
“…We met before I ever met you.” Haiqing did not want to lie to Pinjun, but neither did he want to provoke him further, so he gave only the bare conclusion and left out everything that had happened in between.
“But at Pinky’s birthday party, you didn’t even know each other’s names, did you?” Pinjun remembered Yan Fei introducing himself and the two of them even shaking hands.
“Right. We’d actually only met once, and then we lost contact. Pinky’s birthday was when we ran into each other again.” Haiqing was visibly flustered, yet every word came out painfully careful. The contrast between the two only made things worse.
“And then you fell in love? Isn’t that a little ridiculous?” Pinjun felt as though he were listening to the plot of some absurd prime-time soap opera: the birthday party had actually been a class reunion, and the two of them were long-lost classmates who had found each other again.
“I’ve always wanted to find a chance to explain it to you…” Haiqing had always intended to tell Pinjun about his connection with Yan Fei. Maybe he could have skipped over the racing heartbeat that had made him hesitate and sink deeper and deeper into it, but the fact that he and Yan Fei had met before was something he had long decided he needed to confess. If Pinjun was bothered by it, Haiqing would make up his mind to cut off contact with Yan Fei… probably.
“I don’t know what you think you’re supposed to explain to me. That you fell in love with someone else and I’m just supposed to accept all of it?”
“That’s not what it is. Listen to me!” Haiqing was so frantic he was nearly crying.
“I am listening!” Pinjun had to clench his hands into fists just to keep himself speaking normally. “Tell me how many times the two of you went out on dates.”
“Just a few times…” Haiqing knew he could not argue that those meetings did not count as dates. They had been dates.
“That time you lied and said there was an event in your department was one of them too.” Pinjun looked at him coldly.
Haiqing froze. After hesitating for several seconds, he nodded. “Yes. But I’ve never lied to you before. That was the only time.” Only that once, beneath Yan Fei’s touches and kisses, he had lost himself. Physical pleasure and guilt had battled inside him, and before there had even been any resolution, Pinjun had discovered everything.
“You didn’t lie to me because I never asked.” Pinjun could feel how dry and hoarse his throat was, itchy and painful, every swallow almost a form of torture. “I never asked because I had no idea the two of you were in the middle of some passionate romance.”
“We’re not in some passionate romance… Pinjun, listen to me. I haven’t made any decision.” Haiqing grabbed Pinjun’s arm, trying to make him look at him instead of the meaningless flyers on the table. “I admit… I have feelings for Yan Fei, but I love you too. I don’t know what to do. I really don’t know what I’m supposed to do…”
The moment Pinjun heard Haiqing admit he had feelings for Yan Fei, his whole body seemed to burn with pain.
What the hell was this? Pinjun wanted to grab Haiqing and demand to know what any of it was supposed to mean. Did what he and Haiqing had built together really amount to less than someone who had appeared only a few months ago?
Images and imagined scenes flashed through his mind. Pinjun abruptly lost the ability to think rationally, let alone listen to Haiqing or calm himself down.
“Stop talking!” Pinjun shouted, then stormed into the studio and came back carrying the half-finished oil painting Haiqing had been working on.
“So this is him too, isn’t it?” When Haiqing did not deny it at once, Pinjun knew his guess was right, and the fury in him became impossible to contain. “The person in this painting is him, isn’t it?”
“Pinjun!”
Pinjun snatched up a bottle of paint from the studio and charged back out. Ignoring Haiqing’s attempt to stop him, he flung it straight across the painting.
It looked like a gaping wound, violently and terrifyingly slashed across the canvas. The navy-blue shirt and glossy black hair disappeared beneath the paint.
The hatred, curses, heartache, and grievance tangled inside that frightening streak of color seemed to let out a soundless wail, just like Pinjun’s heart, already covered in wounds.
Haiqing watched the painting being ruined before his eyes, as though his own feelings had been seized and trampled underfoot. He could not stop himself from crying.
Haiqing had not wanted to hurt either side, so he had kept putting off a decision. Yet now, all at once, he had hurt three people.
Another night, moonlight spilled across the bed.
Haiqing sat silently on the edge of the bed, his eyes red and swollen. In the past, bathing in moonlight had always soothed him, but now it did nothing. No matter how long he sat in it, tears simply slid silently down his cheeks. He did not even have the strength to wipe them away.
Pinjun quietly entered the room. Seeing Haiqing ignore him, so dejected and miserable, made Pinjun’s chest ache too.
“Haiqing,” he called.
Haiqing did not react. He only stared blankly ahead, seemingly lost in thought, his hollow eyes making him look like a doll.
Pinjun came closer and crouched in front of him. The tear tracks on Haiqing’s cheeks were so clear that they made his heart hurt.
“I’m sorry.” Pinjun was overwhelmed with regret. “Haiqing, I’m sorry. I lost my head. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Haiqing’s voice was even hoarser than before. His throat was swollen and painful after crying so hard, and forcing out those three words already took enormous effort. “I was wrong too.”
“I didn’t mean to. I really didn’t.” Pinjun braced both hands against Haiqing’s legs, looking almost humble in his effort to please him. “I know that painting was important. How could I have been stupid enough to ruin it?”
Once Pinjun had calmed down, he knew he had done something irreversible. If their positions were reversed and Haiqing had torn up and burned every photograph of Pinjun and Pinky together, he would have been furious too.
Haiqing felt numb in the face of Pinjun’s apology. No matter how much he said, the painting would not come back, and the fact that Haiqing had hurt Pinjun would not disappear either.
Seeing him like this, Pinjun quietly climbed onto the bed and sat beside him, slowly resting a large hand on his shoulder. Every time Haiqing had felt low in the past, Pinjun had comforted him this same way.
“Haiqing, can we pretend none of this ever happened? As long as you stop seeing Yan Fei, we can still keep going the way we were.”
“First… don’t say any more. Let’s both just be quiet for a while…” Haiqing said.
In the silence, Pinjun rested his head on Haiqing’s shoulder. The brush of his chin was slightly ticklish, and normally Haiqing would have squirmed away, but today he simply let Pinjun stay close.
Could they really do that? Haiqing could not stop asking himself. Could they truly pretend none of this had ever happened? Pretend he had never met Yan Fei, never wavered after meeting him again, never lied, never gone out with him, never let Yan Fei tease him, never made Pinjun angry, and that the painting was still intact…
Was that possible?
Facing the dark room and Pinjun’s embrace, Haiqing thought about the answer.
Dawn was only just beginning to lighten the sky.
The door to Haiqing’s home opened quietly. A suitcase was lifted inside first and set down with deliberate care so it would make no sound.
The photograph on the family altar still wore its kindly smile. The hand gripping the suitcase handle let go, and its owner silently prayed toward the photograph, reporting to the elder of the household that everything was safe and well.
Afraid the sound of dragging the suitcase would wake the others, Shichen left it in the living room and first opened the door to Haiqing’s bedroom. He stopped for quite a while when he saw Haiqing and Pinjun asleep in each other’s arms, both naked.
He made no sound. He quietly closed the door, waited for his slightly hurried breathing to settle, then went out to shop for ingredients and household supplies as he usually did. Every so often, though, the hazy image beneath the morning light flashed through his mind, making his brows draw together before relaxing again a few seconds later.
Haiqing stood beside the sink, holding a plate covered in soap suds. After rinsing it under the water, he was about to pass it to Pinjun to dry, but he had barely gotten the first syllable of Pinjun’s name out when he turned and found Shichen watching him. The rest of the word caught in his throat.
Haiqing was having trouble adjusting to living alone with his father again. He had grown too used to having Pinjun around and was constantly turning instinctively to look for him.
Shichen saw that he looked unhappy and immediately guessed it was because he had asked Pinjun to move out. But now that Shichen was back, there was no spare room in the house for Pinjun anyway. It was a perfectly natural decision. Shichen kept those thoughts to himself. He had already said plenty when he told Pinjun to move out.
“I have an idea. Hear me out,” Shichen said as he finished drying a bowl.
“What is it?”
“I want to apply for you to study in the United States.”
Haiqing’s eyelid twitched. He had not expected that. He had assumed his father wanted to talk about Pinjun, about their relationship or something along those lines.
“After I graduate?” Haiqing asked, suppressing the uneasiness in his chest.
His father’s answer was no. In fact, Shichen had already gone a step further and planned out everything that could be arranged in advance, from applying to a language school, to where Haiqing would live, to which credits he would need to make up at school so he could keep pace with his studies back home. It was too much for Haiqing to absorb all at once.
“This… this is too sudden.” Haiqing shook his head, unable to take in so much information at once.
“This is the best solution I can think of. I’m not leaving you here alone again. I’m not comfortable with it.”
“Not comfortable with what? I still have Pinjun to take care of me.” Shichen did not reach for the freshly washed bowl this time, so Haiqing had to set it on the dry towel himself.
“Pinjun? Can you really have Pinjun take care of you for the rest of your life?”
“I can take care of myself too!” Haiqing reminded him of his age again. He was not twelve. He was almost twenty.
Shichen looked unconvinced.
“Haiqing, I’m getting older. I can’t keep changing companies.” He lowered his voice. “Now Grandpa is gone and it’s only the two of us. I’m alone overseas, and honestly, it’s lonely. When I come home, there isn’t even anyone to talk to.”
“Dad!” Haiqing cried out, unable to bear it. Emotional appeals were the one thing he had no defense against. They always made him soften.
“I want to sell this house and buy property in the United States. The prospects there will be better in the long run.”
“Dad, this is too sudden.” Haiqing frowned. “You didn’t ask me about Pinjun, and now you’re making this decision on your own too…”
“You don’t have to decide right away, and you don’t have to rush to reject me. Think about it.” Shichen dried his hands and gave Haiqing a look that clearly said the subject was closed. “This decision is good for both of us.” With that, he left the kitchen and sat down on the sofa in the living room.
Haiqing stared at Shichen’s figure, his mind in turmoil. Too much information had been shoved into his head at once for him to process, and even his head began to ache, making his expression look more miserable.
What about Pinjun? Haiqing could not help thinking. Shichen had not said a single word about someone who had taken care of his son for so long only to be forcibly driven out.
He remembered the phone call with Pinjun a few days earlier.
“So you’re just never coming back?”
“Your dad already said it. Can’t you tell? He knows everything.”
“I don’t care what he knows. Do you have somewhere to stay or not?”
“Yes. I’m staying at a classmate’s place.”
“You’re not lying to me?”
“No! I’m not lying. Go to sleep. I’m going to sleep too. Good night.”
Although Pinjun insisted he was not lying, Haiqing knew him. He could faintly hear the lie meant to keep him from worrying. The proof was how Pinjun kept emphasizing that he was not lying while trying to end the call in a hurry.
“Wait! Haiqing, have you forgiven me?”
“Good night.”
Pinjun was not staying with a friend. He had lied. With Haiqing, he could never bring himself to tell the kinds of truths that would make him worry.
For the first few days, he holed up in the break room at the fast-food restaurant. He would wake up, go to class, come back for his shift, and sometimes shower in the school club’s changing room before returning to sleep. A few days later, he heard about a shared room looking for a new roommate, packed up his things, and moved there.
It was a shared suite only a little bigger than a school dorm room, with bunk beds and every part of daily life spent together. No wonder the student renting it out screened prospective roommates from among people he already knew. With this kind of place, everything depended on the roommate’s character. A good one could be wonderful; a bad one could make you never want to speak to each other again.
The clean white walls were covered in maps and sheets packed with writing. Pinjun moved closer and saw that most were in English, along with a few languages he could not understand. Judging by the tiny flags pinned into them, they seemed to be information about different countries. From a distance, the room had the feel of a backpacker’s hostel.
“This is it. It’s a little messy.” His classmate was a guy whose standard for cleanliness was basically that the place remained livable.
“It’s fine.” Pinjun did not care about the mess. The fast-food restaurant’s break room had been far more grounded in reality than this. He set his bag on the floor beside the bed, but his eyes still drifted to the wall.
His classmate noticed where he was looking and gave him an understanding look.
“That was left by the guy who used to live here.” He pointed to the bed. “He took a leave from school and went backpacking around Europe. That’s why I needed to find a new roommate at such a weird time.”
“He went alone?”
“Alone.”
“That’s brave.” Pinjun was genuinely impressed.
“He said his dream since he was a kid was to wander all over the place. Ha!”
“He got into college just so he could go wandering?”
“Yeah. No idea what goes on in his head. The bottom bunk is yours. I’ve still got a shift, so I’m heading out… By the way, are you okay? You look kind of pale.”
Pinjun only smiled and shook his head, telling his classmate, “Good luck at work.”
Once he was alone, Pinjun looked again at that entire wall of “dreams” and tried to imagine the roommate now wandering Europe. What kinds of thoughts and determination had he carried with him all the way to this room that could be called his “last stop”? The papers, some yellowed and some still white, showed that he had added them to the wall bit by bit. With what sort of feeling had he built an entire wall of dreams like this? Excitement? Anticipation? Or melancholy over the long road still ahead?
Pinjun thought about it for a long time, only to realize he knew almost nothing about such things. He rarely thought about dreams. To him, dreams were simply things that happened occasionally after you fell asleep and vanished once you woke.
What was his own dream? To become the independent, outstanding eldest son his family expected, Pinjun always buried himself in school and work. To make Haiqing feel secure, he poured enormous amounts of love into him.
Pinjun rarely thought about what he himself wanted.
Letting out a breath, Pinjun took out his few clothes and daily necessities and put them away. After a quick shower, he lay down. His consciousness drifted away the instant his head touched the pillow. Maybe he really was exhausted. Fatigue, the pressure of the past few days, and everything with Haiqing had worn him down completely.
He did not even have enough energy left to notice that his phone was vibrating. It went on for half the night.
The little outing between Yan Fei and Haiqing had ended with Pinjun catching them, and things were not easy for Yan Fei when he got home either. In the middle of the night, a phone call dragged him back out. An elderly family member had been admitted to the emergency department, and as the only son, he could not stay away.
He went to the hospital, listened to the doctor’s instructions, and after the discharge brought the elder home to recuperate. Because of that, Jimmy moved out again. Yan Fei’s time was suddenly squeezed down to almost nothing. Even finding time to eat a proper meal and take a slow shower felt like a luxury he had not enjoyed in ages.
Yan Fei had thought about sitting Jimmy down for a proper conversation, but he had not expected Jimmy to beat him to it.
One day after work, Yan Fei came home and saw cardboard boxes stacked by the door. Only after asking did he learn that they were boxes Jimmy had not needed when moving his things.
“He moved out?”
“He didn’t tell you?” The older woman gave him a look that said young people these days really did not know how to handle anything properly, then handed him something. “This is the key. He asked me to give it back to you.”
“When did he come back to move? When did this happen?”
“This afternoon!” Seeing how terrible her son looked, Yan Fei’s mother immediately became nervous too. “What is it? Did he take something of yours?”
“No, Mom. Did he say anything else?”
“No.”
Yan Fei looked lost and rattled by everything. This was nothing like what he had expected. He had indeed thought about breaking up with Jimmy, but not like this…
After checking on his mother, he went back to his room and called several times without getting an answer. He could only leave messages, hoping the two of them could meet.
Jimmy did not object to the suggestion and appeared at the café Yan Fei had specified the next day. Two cups of coffee sat neatly between them, their spoons set to the side. They looked almost like props merged into a behind-the-scenes still from some television drama.
“Why so sudden? You just up and moved.”
Jimmy gave a soft laugh.
“Sudden to you? Haven’t you been trying to break up with me this whole time? Better for me to move out myself than wait for you to throw me out.” Jimmy remembered every time Yan Fei had said the words break up and how he had always refused outright. But people got tired. Eventually they reached a point where everything stopped mattering.
Jimmy had clearly reached that point.
“I wasn’t trying to throw you out. I just wanted us to part on good terms. We can still be friends.”
“I seriously can’t stand you. Why can you always find some pretty way to dress yourself up?”
“You obviously fell in love with someone else. Why won’t you admit it?” Jimmy did not think of himself as someone impossible to reason with. Maybe there would be a period when he could not accept it, when his emotions would be unstable, but even that was better than dragging things out.
Yan Fei looked awkward. He could not tell whether it was because his true self had been exposed so mercilessly, or because he had finally run out of the “pretty words” Jimmy accused him of using to defend himself.
“I did fall in love with someone else.” Yan Fei swallowed, a trace of guilt between his brows. “But that only happened recently… Our problems have nothing to do with whether I fell for someone else.”
Sure. Of course they had nothing to do with each other. Jimmy gave him a mocking smile.
“So you admit it. You did fall for someone else. I wasn’t wrong. Doesn’t that make things clearer? If I don’t get out of the way, how is anyone else supposed to get in?” Jimmy shrugged. If he had not moved out on his own, how much longer would this have dragged on? A year? Two years? Even longer than they had already been together?
“You knew my mother needed to come home and recuperate after leaving the hospital. You agreed to that, didn’t you?” Yan Fei could not understand why Jimmy was saying this now.
When his mother had first needed to come home, Jimmy had immediately claimed he was going on a business trip and moved into a hotel. Yan Fei knew the two of them had never gotten along and had thought the arrangement was fine. At most, once Jimmy came back, he would make it up to him properly with a nice dinner or a trip.
Jimmy stared at him wide-eyed, amazed that Yan Fei could reach such a conclusion. No, what he felt was closer to helplessness.
“I’m not talking about that house. I’m talking about your heart.” Jimmy pointed to the left side of Yan Fei’s chest. “Everyone only has one place in their heart. If it isn’t empty, there’s no room for anyone else.”
Yan Fei followed his gesture downward, his gaze settling on the chest hidden beneath his shirt.
“Yes. If that’s how you want to put it, I admit it… That place has been empty for a long time.” He could not say exactly when it had started to empty. A few months ago? Half a year? No, probably a year ago, from the moment he met Haiqing.
Jimmy watched him admit it so readily and could not help smiling bitterly. The bitterness in that smile reached even Yan Fei, and somehow it was harder to bear than tears.
“I wasn’t any better. I should have agreed the first time you said you wanted to break up. I was too naive. I thought that as long as one of us was willing to compromise, we could start over.” Jimmy turned his face away so the tears would not spill from his eyes. What he had believed was not actually wrong. If there was still willingness, people could try to begin again, but only if both sides wanted it.
And even then, it only meant there was a possibility. It did not guarantee that what waited for them would be a fairy-tale ending.
“I’m sorry.” At this point, those were the only three words Yan Fei had left.
Hearing the apology, Jimmy discovered that the sense of relief or release he had once imagined was nowhere near as fierce as he had expected. Instead, he felt melancholy, the melancholy of realizing everything had changed while he had been the last one to see it.
“Maybe back then the reason still wasn’t strong enough.” After all, at the time he alone had been stubbornly in love with Yan Fei. “But let me tell you something. You’d better understand that you’re the kind of person people eventually can’t keep loving. Once things reach a certain point, you close the door.”
Jimmy drew a deep breath. An impulse in his chest kept urging him on.
Say it. We’ve come this far anyway, so say it. Your hurt is real. Your pain is real. Say it out loud.
At the very end, be a little kinder to yourself.
“You’re afraid of intimacy, afraid of getting hurt, afraid of commitment. If you really think happiness is all there is to love, then you’ll never understand what love actually is.”
Scenes from the past appeared vividly before him, as though everything had happened only the night before.
They had first met at a night market, when Jimmy was still selling handicrafts he had bought wholesale.
Jimmy moved into Yan Fei’s home and happily decorated the place they shared, making every corner neat and beautiful.
They had had wonderful times too, curled together reading, talking, touching skin to skin, every day feeling like heaven.
“Do you know why I couldn’t move on? I wasn’t making trouble for no reason. I wanted to be with you, but I couldn’t see a future in your eyes, a future with me in it.”
The first time Yan Fei was arranged on a blind date, Jimmy had been forced for the first time to pretend they were merely ordinary coworkers.
Yan Fei’s indifference after their arguments. The loneliness of facing an empty home alone during the holidays.
All the ways Jimmy had tried to wake Yan Fei’s concern: pleasing him, taunting him, acting willful, pulling away in the hope Yan Fei would chase…
And then, somehow, they had arrived here.
“You’re an asshole. If you don’t have the guts to get hurt, then don’t come out here and play at love!” Seeing Yan Fei remain silent, Jimmy simply stood up. “If you want happiness, change. Otherwise, I feel sorry for whoever you’re chasing. I only came here because I wanted to curse you out. I’m leaving.”
Jimmy left exactly as he said he would, without a shred of lingering attachment. That was not an emotion that belonged at a moment like this.
That was what heartbreak was. You thought you were dying, that everything had gone black, but then you woke up every day and, like sobering up after being drunk, became a little clearer than the day before. Once you were fully awake, your head stopped hurting and you could be happy again. Soon. Truly.
Yan Fei sank into thought beneath Jimmy’s torrent of words. He did not even notice that Jimmy had never touched the coffee on the table from beginning to end.
Jimmy had already quit drinking coffee long ago.
Life abruptly returned to the way it had been at the very beginning.
Haiqing held his phone. Pinjun was no longer beside him, and he was no longer seeing Yan Fei. All he had left was the last message Pinjun had sent him several days earlier:
Let’s pretend none of this ever happened, and let’s not mention Yan Fei again.
Let it pass. Neither of us will bring it up again.
I love you very much. I will never give up.
Yan Fei had sent many messages too, but Haiqing had not opened any of them.
Haiqing called Pinjun back, wanting to have a proper conversation, only to find that Pinjun never answered. The voicemail greeting on the other end only made him more agitated.
After thinking for a long time, Haiqing decided to go directly to the restaurant where Pinjun worked. What he found there startled him: Pinjun had not been in for several days. The manager said he was supposed to come in today, but he had been sick and had taken leave for the previous few days. Haiqing sat in the dining area to wait, repeatedly looking at Pinjun’s messages.
When Pinjun finally appeared, Haiqing stood up at once, jostling the table hard enough that the condensation beneath his drink ran toward the edge.
“Where have you been?” Haiqing asked anxiously.
“I moved in with a classmate. I got sick and missed your calls.” Pinjun still looked weak. That night, Pinky had reached his phone and his roommate had answered. Only then had she learned he had a fever. Pinky had gone over and taken care of him for several days; otherwise, Pinjun might still have been in bed even now.
“I had a fever for two days. Really.”
“Did you see a doctor?”
“Not yet. I didn’t have time. I had to get back to work. I missed tutoring yesterday too and didn’t even ask for leave. I’m dead.” Thinking about all the things he had missed over the past two days and all the explanations and apologies he would have to make left Pinjun helpless. Then his thoughts shifted, and he looked at Haiqing with a huge smile. “You were really worried when you couldn’t find me, huh?”
“Of course! You didn’t answer your phone, no one could find you, and I was scared you’d collapsed somewhere on the street.”
“People aren’t that fragile, okay?” Pinjun laughed. No matter what happened, Pinjun always wanted to be the one who brought warmth first.
“Right. This is a caring country. The most beautiful scenery is the people.” Haiqing rolled his eyes. “You’re sick and you still have to work?”
“I’m much better. Go home first. I’ll call you when I get off, okay? Look, the manager is glaring at me.”
“Tell him I’m here to make a customer complaint.”
“He’s scary. I wouldn’t dare. Go back first. I’ll call you the minute my shift ends.”
Only after Pinjun coaxed him over and over did Haiqing finally agree to leave, walking out of the fast-food restaurant still full of worry. The instant Haiqing stepped out the door, Pinjun’s smile disappeared. In the frailty of someone only just recovering from a serious illness, he looked especially vulnerable.
Haiqing would never see any of that.
Haiqing wandered the streets for a while. He did not want to go home, so he called Xiao K, originally intending to hole up at either Xiao K’s place or his shop. Xiao K, however, said he was downstairs at Haiqing’s building and was just about to ring the bell.
Haiqing hurried home and found Xiao K looking completely refreshed, glowing like someone who had just accomplished some magnificent feat. Only after asking did he discover that while Haiqing had not been paying attention, Xiao K had gone on an enormous journey.
He had gone to Korea and seen his oppa.
Curled into his usual corner, Xiao K chattered without pause about the trip and everything he had seen.
It was his first time in Korea and he had run into no real trouble, which gave Xiao K an enormous boost in confidence. On the ground floor of the television station was a live studio designed specifically for fans, allowing them to get close to the celebrities they liked. They could not talk to them, but compared with only seeing them through a television screen, it was hundreds of times better.
“Isn’t it dangerous to let fans get that close?” Haiqing asked with a laugh.
Xiao K gave him a sly look. “Would you feel unsafe looking at sharks in an aquarium? Same principle! Of course there are security guards standing by.”
Haiqing thought about it. “When you say ‘shark,’ do you mean you or your oppa?”
“You’re so annoying!” Xiao K smacked Haiqing hard. “That’s completely beside the point!”
Xiao K had even wanted his oppa to remember him, so he brought along a signboard that said in Korean, “I’m Xiao K. I’m from Taiwan.”
“You can write Korean?” Haiqing raised an eyebrow. Since when?
“Of course I got someone else to write it!” Xiao K glared at him. Why did Haiqing always have to puncture his stories? “It worked amazingly well. He actually saw me!” The more Xiao K talked, the more excited he became. Haiqing could picture exactly what the scene had looked like: Xiao K had probably been so excited he was on the verge of fainting, but…
At the same time, Xiao K had thought that after traveling all that way to Korea and finally getting to see his oppa, how could he possibly faint? So he forced himself to stay upright.
Xiao K said he first waved at his oppa, then pointed at his own hair to show that they had the same hair color. To make Haiqing experience it properly, Xiao K reenacted the entire thing on the spot and even asked whether Haiqing understood what he meant.
“I know, I know. Then what?”
“Then he smiled.” Xiao K was overflowing with delight.
“Do you know what? I felt like my whole life became complete in that moment. No regrets. I could suffer through anything for the rest of my life and not be afraid anymore,” he said emotionally.
Haiqing thought that was a little exaggerated and could not help being skeptical.
“You’re a person with no faith. You wouldn’t understand!” Xiao K glared at him. “If one day you felt your god reach out and touch your cheek, then you’d understand what it feels like for your life to become complete.”
Seriously, if Haiqing had not known Xiao K was talking about his oppa, he would have assumed Xiao K had joined some bizarre new religious cult.
“I don’t have faith. Where am I supposed to get a god?” Haiqing shrugged with a sigh. Besides, he barely had the energy to go looking for something to believe in right now. Between Pinjun, Yan Fei, and his father’s proposal, he already had more than enough to make his head hurt.
“Then go find one!” Xiao K said lightly. But when he looked at Haiqing’s face, he sighed too. “Some people don’t get enough love. You get too much. Love really is like menstruation. It gets out of whack so easily.”
Haiqing had intended to retort, You say that like you have one, but something else came out instead.
“…I envy you. You really are brave.”
Going to Korea alone, with no one accompanying him and without speaking the language, probably relying on a translation device all the way just to get through everything, and still going without looking back simply to see his oppa once… That kind of courage did not come easily. To Haiqing, it was already a kind of dream.
“It’s actually not that hard to decide. How about I toss a coin for you?” Xiao K said, and really did pull a coin from his pocket as if he meant to flip it. “Lucky you only have two choices. Otherwise one coin wouldn’t be enough.”
Haiqing burst out laughing and immediately lunged at Xiao K to muss up his hair. The two of them wrestled around, and the effortless intimacy between them felt especially good. Everyone needed a close friend like this: someone who would fool around with you when you were low, hug you and celebrate with you when you were happy, someone whose careless or deliberate words could become a lamp inside your heart.
Xiao K’s words finally settled Haiqing’s mind, and he thought about so many, many things involving Pinjun and Yan Fei.
At the beginning, when his life had been unstable, he had met Yan Fei and felt a stirring he had not experienced in a long time.
Then he met Pinjun. Being with Pinjun felt as though they had known each other forever. They ate shaved ice, watched movies, drew, and studied together. No matter how ordinary the activity, Haiqing found enormous satisfaction in it. He had been so happy then, happy enough that even his father’s opposition to his choice of school barely stirred his emotions.
Then Grandpa died, and his father left for the United States. If Pinjun had not supported him every step of the way and fought desperately to pull him out of that pit, perhaps he would never have gotten into art school, never have created work in that newly transformed studio, and never have remained as close and comfortable with Xiao K as before. He truly loved Pinjun.
Yan Fei’s reappearance was like a stone thrown into a still pond, stirring far more than a few ripples.
What Haiqing felt with Yan Fei was different from what he felt with Pinjun. It was an adventure, an adventure about love. Every scene he remembered seemed guided by fate. Yan Fei could always awaken his deepest desires: his domineering insistence, his refusal to take no for an answer, the heat that fused with intimacy.
Yan Fei’s large hands and kisses surrounded him again and again like waves. The longing and attraction that had been fermenting since their first meeting made Yan Fei completely unique in Haiqing’s heart.
Pinjun was the spring breeze. Yan Fei was the blazing sun of winter.
Pinjun was the noodle shop at the mouth of the alley. Yan Fei was a restaurant specializing in inventive cuisine.
Pinjun represented security. Yan Fei represented passion.
Two completely different people provoked completely different responses in Haiqing’s life. Yet those responses would eventually recede. No one was naturally entitled to remain in another person’s life forever. Everyone was moving forward, and so was Haiqing.
He had secretly gone out with Yan Fei, ultimately hurting Pinjun badly enough that Pinjun even destroyed his painting. Even if Pinjun regretted it afterward, the fault did not belong to Pinjun alone. Yan Fei, domineering as he was, had also been left hanging, unable to move forward because Haiqing could not make up his mind. Haiqing realized all of it had happened because of his own indecision.
If he had not been so indecisive, perhaps none of this would have happened, or at least the damage could have been kept to a minimum.
Haiqing curled in on himself and let every memory, good and bad, embrace him. They were warm like Pinjun’s embraces and Yan Fei’s embraces, while he stayed quietly inside them like a newborn child, listening to the voice of the child within himself, the child he had ignored for so long that it had nearly lost the right to speak.
The child inside Haiqing. His own true voice.
The phone on the table vibrated.
Pinky looked at Yan Fei, who was up front being egged on by his subordinates to treat everyone to a celebration banquet. She called “Director” several times but got no response. Curiosity got the better of her, and she stole a glance at his screen.
Let’s stop contacting each other for now. I don’t want to hurt Pinjun.
The screen slowly dimmed until the image disappeared completely.
For once, the sun was out, lending a little warmth to the earth. Walking beneath it, Haiqing felt himself relax.
He arrived at the studio and found Pinjun still modeling in the same spot. Haiqing had not signed up for the class today, so he came only as an observer. The teacher noticed him when he entered and nodded in greeting.
Haiqing deliberately stood where Pinjun would be able to see him. When he entered the edge of Pinjun’s field of vision, Pinjun smiled at him, then quickly returned to his pose.
The scratch of pencils in the classroom was soothing. Haiqing had relied on that sound countless times to calm himself and make it through nights when he could not settle down.
The scene before him seemed to return him to the afternoon when he had first met Pinjun. He had watched Pinjun with complete concentration then, drawing every detail of his body and faithfully recreating it on paper. Afterward Pinjun had approached him first and started talking, beginning the relationship that had brought them all the way to today. Now Haiqing was still watching Pinjun from the same place, only something felt different…
The scratching of pencils abruptly stopped and was replaced by the sounds of people packing away their art supplies. Haiqing’s thoughts snapped back to the present, and only then did he realize class was over.
Pinjun slowly moved his arms and legs, then looked in Haiqing’s direction. “Wait for me. I’ll put my things away.” After that he slowly stepped down from the model’s platform and went to the back of the classroom to get dressed.
Haiqing felt uneasy. Pinjun seemed even more exhausted than before.
Once Pinjun finished packing, the two of them walked out of the classroom in silence.
Pinjun’s exhaustion made Haiqing unsure whether he should try to start a conversation. It was less about the awkwardness of what had happened between them than some basic instinct telling him there was something wrong with Pinjun.
“Want to get something to eat?” Pinjun asked.
“Sure.”
“What do you want?”
Haiqing said he had no idea and asked whether Pinjun wanted anything.
“I’m exhausted. Right now I just want to sleep. Anything is fine.” Pinjun’s eyes were nearly closed. Even the warm sunlight seemed too bright for him.
“Then why did you ask whether I wanted to eat?” Haiqing frowned at him.
“I can keep you company while you eat.” Pinjun gave him a reassuring smile. “What time is the movie?”
“In an hour.” Haiqing had actually come to find Pinjun because the two of them had plans to see a movie. Haiqing had already bought the tickets, so they could simply arrive when it was time for the film and did not need to pick them up early.
“An hour… If I fall asleep in the theater, don’t wake me up.” Pinjun even yawned as he spoke.
How much of the sweetness they had once shared had been built on Pinjun’s gentleness and thoughtfulness? Now that one side of the foundation had shifted, everything seemed to be in danger of collapsing.
Pinjun’s yawn made Haiqing stop walking.
“I don’t want to watch the movie anymore. Go back and rest first.”
“Are you upset?” Pinjun looked alarmed. Seeing that expression made Haiqing’s nose sting even more. When had he become someone Pinjun had to be so careful around? Meanwhile, Haiqing himself kept behaving however he pleased.
“No. I just remembered a classmate saying that movie isn’t even very good. Let’s not waste the time. You should go back and get some proper rest instead.” Haiqing shrugged as he answered, trying to ease Pinjun’s anxiety.
“You really don’t want to watch it?”
“Really. Go back and sleep first.” Haiqing smiled at him and even pinched both his cheeks, his face full of concern.
“All right… You go home, then. I’ll go back and sleep for a bit. I still have tutoring tonight.” Pinjun smiled when Haiqing squeezed his cheeks. The tension in him disappeared in an instant, which only made his exhaustion show more clearly.
“Mm! Go on. Get plenty of sleep.” Haiqing kept urging him to rest properly and gave him a little push between the shoulder blades.
Pinjun let himself be pushed away while Haiqing kept watching his back for a long time before finally turning and walking in the opposite direction.
Was it already too late? Haiqing could not stop himself from wondering.
A long table was covered with fruit, cookies, hot snacks, bottles of liquor, and wineglasses. Everyone had already gotten well into their drinks, and the atmosphere was lively. A pleasant buzz was the best possible party starter.
Yan Fei sat at the bar instead of joining his subordinates’ celebration. His mood was extremely low. Ever since seeing Haiqing’s message, he had been like this. He was still every bit as capable at work, but some of his usual confidence was gone. Pinky was the only person who knew why.
Amid all the noise, Pinjun pushed open the door. The first person he saw was Yan Fei drinking at the bar, and he froze. His brows drew tightly together, then relaxed again, a change nearly impossible to notice in the dim room.
“You’re here. Sit down. What do you want to drink?” Yan Fei greeted him naturally, completely unaffected by their private affairs.
“I can’t drink today.” Pinjun declined tactfully. “Where’s Pinky?”
“Over there.” Yan Fei called toward the crowd. Pinky was especially quick to react to Yan Fei’s voice and immediately popped out from among them, only for her eyes to widen when she saw Pinjun.
“Why are you here?” Pinky could not understand it at all. She had never told him about this!
“Jacky told me. He said there was something important.” Pinjun frowned.
Before Pinky could answer, Jacky came over and greeted him enthusiastically, even opening his arms to hug him. “Of course you had to come today!” Seeing Pinjun’s baffled expression, he burst out laughing. “This is a celebration party! You’re one of the people who made it happen. How could we not invite you? And later I’ve even got a surprise for you!”
After saying that, Jacky pulled Pinky back into the crowd to mingle. Pinky was still uneasy about leaving the two men together. In between toasts, she kept glancing toward Pinjun and Yan Fei, afraid they might start fighting if one of them said the wrong thing.
Yan Fei sipped his whiskey. The atmosphere felt a little awkward, so he tried to start a conversation.
“No work today?”
“I switched shifts.”
Pinjun’s reply was polite and proper, but noticeably distant. That was hardly surprising given how sensitive their relationship was in private.
Yan Fei ordered tea for Pinjun because he had said he could not drink. The bartender brought him a glass of oolong tea with several ice cubes floating in it. Pinjun took a large swallow, and his emotions settled a little along with it.
“I heard the client was very satisfied,” Pinjun said, staring into his glass of oolong tea.
“Yeah. They want you again next season. Pinky mentioned it to you, right?”
“And I already gave you my answer, didn’t I?” Pinjun said coldly. He was against signing another contract, and both of them knew exactly why.
“Won’t you think about it again?” Business was business. Setting their private feelings aside, Yan Fei approved of Pinjun doing this kind of work. If the client was satisfied, he did not mind playing persuader again. “The terms are excellent. You could pay off your student loans quickly, and your graduate-school expenses would be covered too.”
The way Yan Fei spoke sounded like a host pitching a product, and impatience showed on Pinjun’s face.
“I told you already. I don’t want to change the life I have now.” He raised the glass to his lips as soon as he finished, making it clear through his actions that he did not want to keep talking to Yan Fei.
Seeing that, Yan Fei could only sigh.
Just then Jacky stepped onto the stage, grabbed the microphone, and gave an emcee-like “Ah!”
“Everyone, everyone, our leading man is here: Chen Pinjun!”
He pointed the microphone toward Pinjun, and cheers, whistles, and greetings immediately followed. Pinjun was forced to acknowledge everyone, the smile on his face a little stiff.
“At our client’s strong request, Pinjun will continue as the male lead for next season’s image campaign. Let’s hear it for Pinjun!”
Jacky’s announcement left Pinjun stunned. For a moment he forgot how to react. Pinky pushed him toward the stage and pleaded quietly in his ear, “Bro, just go up for a minute. Say anything. For me, please.”
Under the pressure of the crowd and his sister’s pleading, Pinjun had no choice but to go up reluctantly and stand beside Jacky. He had no idea what to say. Even when Jacky handed him the microphone and asked him to say a few words, Pinjun could only stay silent, standing stiffly onstage with the microphone in his hand.
Jacky laughed and smoothed over the awkwardness for him, telling him to say anything at all, even to complain about or roast anyone he wanted. Jacky’s gift of gab made everyone below laugh, and no one minded Pinjun’s silence.
In the dim light, Pinjun saw Yan Fei raise his glass and toast him with the whiskey inside it. Suddenly, everything clicked.
With the sting of humiliation burning through him, Pinjun raised the microphone.
“Thank you for the kindness, everyone. But love is something beautiful, and nothing in this world can be traded for it. So I’m declining to continue working with all of you next season. I’m sorry, and thank you.” He handed the microphone back to Jacky and walked off the stage without looking back.
His statement caused an uproar. No one understood the first part, but the second half was perfectly clear: Pinjun was refusing to continue working with them, which meant he would not be in the second-season campaign. But why? No one could make sense of it, and they could only point and whisper as Pinjun walked past.
Under all those stares and murmurs, Pinjun went straight to Yan Fei.
“What I feel for Haiqing can’t be exchanged for a calculated career opportunity like this. I already turned you down once. Since you insist on pushing it, I have no choice but to make my position even clearer.” The thought that this man had actually tried to use such a low tactic, putting him under public pressure so he would accept the opportunity, made the humiliation burn even worse. Pinjun had to clench his fists just to keep speaking steadily.
“Pinjun, you’ve completely misunderstood… That isn’t what I meant.” Besides, Haiqing already told me he wouldn’t see me anymore. Yan Fei did not say the last part aloud.
Pinky grabbed Pinjun by the shoulder, afraid he might do something reckless in the heat of the moment. Surrounded by people who seemed to be on no one’s side but his, Pinjun only grew angrier.
“Please stay away from us. Stay away from Haiqing,” he said through clenched teeth.
Pinjun was still gentler with his sister. Instead of shaking her off, he took her hand and used the gesture to make her understand. The moment Pinky let go, Pinjun left. The door slammed so loudly behind him that everyone knew exactly how angry he was.
Everyone watched the scene. Even those who did not know the details as well as Pinky could tell that there was probably some kind of romantic entanglement between Yan Fei and Pinjun, and Yan Fei was clearly the one who had done something wrong. The realization left Yan Fei somewhat embarrassed, and all he could do was raise his glass.
“Give me another!” he called.
The motorcycle sped along the road, its speed right at the minimum limit. If Pinjun had not been afraid of getting ticketed, he would certainly have ridden even faster.
It was rush hour, and the broad road was packed with traffic. Pinjun felt the anger surging back through him turn into a tangible heat that wrapped around his body, leaving his head slightly starved for air. Just as he wondered whether he should pull over and calm down before going any farther, his vision suddenly went black and the front of the motorcycle began to wobble.
Pinjun raised his head. Just before consciousness disappeared, he seemed to see Haiqing not far away, waving to him. He wanted to stop and ask why Haiqing was there, but Haiqing suddenly dropped out of sight before his eyes. Panicked, Pinjun reached out to catch him, but before he could even speak, his whole body was flung through the air and crashed loudly by the roadside.
He struck a transformer box, while the motorcycle and his body skidded apart. The people nearby froze in shock, then hurried out of their cars to help. Some called the police, others called an ambulance, and motorists carrying warning triangles began directing traffic on their own, keeping the scene intact until the police arrived and preventing the injured man from being hurt a second time.
“Sir! Sir, can you hear me?” A passerby crouched beside Pinjun and tried to wake him, but Pinjun lay there without any response, as though he were deeply asleep.
From the arrival of the ambulance, to Pinjun being rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment, to Pinky hurrying there herself, Pinjun seemed trapped in a nightmare he could not wake from. Again and again he dreamed that Haiqing jumped from a high-rise building. He tried to catch him, but every time he lost him at the very last second. The anguish was unbearable, yet there was nothing he could do.
If he could, Pinjun wanted to wake up. He wanted to escape that terrifying scene. But he remained trapped there for so long that after losing Haiqing over and over again, he was sobbing hard enough for his entire body to shake.