Aston looked away and ignored him.
Qin Siyu went back to gazing out the window.
His face didn’t hurt that badly. He was used to it.
In Chinatown, people usually rushed forward and fought. You either stayed weak forever or learned to be fierce. When the law failed you, if you couldn’t become fierce, you’d spend your whole life being bullied. That might be even worse than losing your life.
Qin Siyu was tall, five feet ten inches, taller than almost anyone in Chinatown, and he could fight. Nobody had dared trouble his family for quite some time.
As he gazed out the window, he absently picked at a hole that had just been torn in his trousers with the tip of his index finger.
The little tear had probably been made when the police pinned him to the ground. His trousers were several years old, and the fabric had already begun to wear out.
The skin beneath might have been scraped too, but the trousers sat differently when he was standing and sitting. The patch now visible through the hole was uninjured and didn’t hurt.
He absently slipped his index finger through the hole and poked around inside.
Just playing.
The skin of his thigh was usually hidden beneath his trousers, but now he could scratch it with his finger. He found that amusing.
Aston glanced at him.
Qin Siyu’s skin was very fair. Against his dirty trousers, the patch exposed through the torn fabric looked startlingly pale. Still gazing out the window, he held his index finger upright, widened the hole a little, and slipped his finger through to fiddle with the skin of his thigh.
After a while he withdrew his finger. The fabric parted around a small, round opening, revealing the slender, pale skin beneath once more.
A few seconds later, his finger slipped back into the hole almost of its own accord, and he resumed idly touching his skin. At times his hand stayed outside, lightly scratching or tracing circles along the inner edge of the tear.
“…” Aston crossed his arms, closed his eyes, and rested.
After a while, Qin Siyu apparently saw something he wanted to point out to Aston. But he’d barely made a sound when he noticed Aston’s eyes were closed, as though he were asleep. His voice died in his throat. From then on he clearly made an effort to move more gently and keep quiet so as not to disturb him.
Aston, of course, couldn’t be bothered to explain anything on his own initiative.
The car jolted along. Aston occasionally opened his eyes and looked around.
On one side lay the endless sea. At some point, Aston saw Qin Siyu, sitting beside him, accidentally pick up a loose strand of hair from the seat next to his leg.
It was blond.
Of course Qin Siyu knew whose hair it was. He glanced at the man beside him, still apparently sleeping, and wanted to open the window to toss it out. He spent ages trying, though, and couldn’t figure out how to open it.
There was a window crank beneath the glass, but Qin Siyu had never seen one.
Other than this, he’d never ridden in a private car, only buses, and bus windows didn’t work that way.
A little embarrassed, he looked at the golden strand in his hand. He couldn’t very well put it back on the seat, drop it on the floor, or make noise by asking the driver. So he simply sat there in a daze, holding the hair between his fingers.
After half a minute, perhaps because his hand was tired, he gently wound the golden strand around his right index finger, pinched it between his fingertips, and rested his hand on his knee.
The strand coiled around his finger and lay there lightly entwined.
He was always very serious about things, and this was no exception. Instead of looping it haphazardly around his fingertip, he wound it carefully, one tidy circle after another, around the joint of his finger, then held it neatly in his hand against his knee.
Aston said nothing, continuing to feign sleep.
Clearly Qin Siyu couldn’t keep his hands still; they always wanted something to do.
When Aston opened his eyes again, he saw Qin Siyu pick a strand of his own black hair off his trousers. After hesitating, Qin Siyu tried once more to open the window. He felt around beneath it, even touching the crank, but still couldn’t work out how it operated. He ended up winding the black strand around his right index finger as well, pinching them together, the two hairs intertwining.
One golden, one black.
The hairs were so fine. Sometimes the black strand lay over the gold, sometimes it slipped between the coils, sometimes… they rubbed against one another, winding and tangling together.
A few minutes later, bored, Qin Siyu began playing with the two hairs again.
He released his finger. The strands loosened, yet somehow seemed even more closely entwined. Sometimes the black lay outside, sometimes the gold. They wound together almost of their own accord.
Qin Siyu took one strand in each hand and pulled them apart, but they curled into one another as he drew them in opposite directions, clinging and catching as though reluctant to part.
Pinching Aston’s strand with his left hand and his own with his right, Qin Siyu twisted the two together a few times, formed a loop, and did something else with deft, concentrated movements. At last he tugged gently at both ends and somehow tied the strands together into a knot.
Aston watched silently.
Qin Siyu tugged again.
It was tight.
One blond hair and one black hair were knotted firmly together, impossible to pull apart.
No matter how hard he pulled, they wouldn’t come undone.
Not unless one of them broke in two.
Aston gave a little cough. Qin Siyu noticed and whipped around, abruptly meeting Aston’s calm gaze. Their eyes locked.
“Well…” Feeling a little strange about it, Qin Siyu explained, “The professor said that if you really want to be a doctor and apply to medical school, you can start training your fingers now. Improving your hand muscles and fine finger control gives you an advantage in lots of later classes, makes a better impression on your professors, helps with recommendation letters, and makes it easier to get into major hospitals. I had nothing to do just now, and I happened to pick up two hairs, so I tried… tying a knot.”
For a Chinese person, getting into a top medical school or major institution was terribly difficult.
He tugged again. “This is a surgical knot. You can’t pull it apart. I wasn’t very good when I first started, but I’m okay now.”
Aston merely nodded without replying. He looked toward the car window, leaned over, took hold of the handle, and rolled the window down for Qin Siyu.
With Aston so close, Qin Siyu could see his thick, long lashes and the high bridge of his nose.
He could also smell the faint scent of wood.
Qin Siyu reached out the window and let go. The intertwined strands of hair drifted into the evening sky on the breeze.
In the light from behind, they looked almost transparent.
Soon they were gone.
The car finally drew near the university. Qin Siyu closed the window. An advertisement stood beside the road, promoting Coca-Cola with the slogan:
“HAPPINESS FOR FIVE CENTS!”
Qin Siyu had never heard of Coca-Cola before, but in recent years its advertisements had spread across America, their message striking straight at people’s hearts: happiness for five cents.
Five cents. Happiness.
What a rare thing.
And so, even in this economic climate, Coca-Cola’s sales climbed against the tide.
Who wouldn’t want a little happiness?
“Aston,” Qin Siyu asked curiously, “have you ever tried Coca-Cola?”
“Of course.” Aston didn’t care for it, though. It was unhealthy. He asked casually, “Have you?”
“No.” Qin Siyu shook his head, then asked, “Is it really that amazing? Can it really make you happy when you drink it?”
Aston glanced at him, turned his eyes away again, and called out the driver’s name.
At the front, Parker heard him and opened the glove compartment beside him. It was actually a miniature bar! He took out a bottle of some drink, uncapped it, and handed it to the back.
“Huh???” As though someone had performed a magic trick, Qin Siyu widened his eyes. “???”
Aston said nothing more. He wasn’t even paying attention to Qin Siyu now, having turned back toward the window.
“…Thank you.” Qin Siyu accepted the drink, cradled it carefully, and took a cautious sip.
Sweetness struck his taste buds at once.
There was a little sharpness to it as well.
Delicious.
Perhaps it really could make him “happy.”
Aston looked back and saw that Qin Siyu’s face still bore scratches and bruises, and the corner of his mouth was split. They were traces of his earlier fight with the man refusing food to Black applicants. Yet there he sat now, carefully sipping cola, his expression so earnest that one might think he was savoring some extraordinary delicacy.
Qin Siyu smiled. “I once thought about buying a bottle to try, but then I forgot.”
The truth was that he hadn’t been willing to part with those five cents.
There was a cartoon image of Mickey Mouse on the street as well.
Qin Siyu said, “Mickey Mouse. How cute.”
Aston: “???”
“What’s cute about him?” Aston asked. “He’s a male mouse in red underpants.”
The cartoon character had only been introduced in 1929, right as the Depression began, yet had immediately become popular throughout the country. Inexplicably so.
Elio’s Notes: The novel dates Mickey Mouse’s debut to 1929. Disney dates his screen debut in Steamboat Willie to November 18, 1928. The story’s date has been kept as written. Sources: The Walt Disney Company and The Walt Disney Family Museum.
“I’m not quite sure why he’s cute,” Qin Siyu said after thinking it over. “Maybe because he’s more like ordinary people? We enjoy watching a mouse ride on ships and airplanes, do all sorts of things, and travel the world, fulfilling a dream for us. He’s only a mouse, so he can slip in here and wander off there. Maybe we want to be him.”
Aston looked at him again.
After a while, Aston said, “Sean…”
But then he said nothing else.
“You know,” Qin Siyu changed the subject, “Sean sounds a little like the second character in my original Chinese name. My family name is Qin, and ‘Chin’ isn’t really very close, but English doesn’t have the right sound, so people say ‘Chin.’ My Chinese given name is Siyu. Doesn’t it sound a little like Sean?”
“A little.”
“My full Chinese name is Qin Siyu,” he said. “The second character means temple, and the third means feather. A very learned person my parents knew gave me that name. He said that back in the Qin dynasty, in western China, Buddhism might already have made its way into the country because of trade. So the name means that even after countless dynasties and several thousand years, the birds in the temple remain untouched by change or upheaval, peaceful and serene. He hoped I would be like that too, calm and steady no matter what twists and turns I faced.”
His mother loved the name, so they used it even though “Siyu” was awkward and difficult to pronounce in Cantonese. Qin Sanfu had been reluctant at first. But he went to a Daoist priest to have his son’s fortune told, and after working it out for quite a while, the priest said the name would bring great wealth. Qin Sanfu desperately wanted to become rich, so he happily agreed to use it.
His parents had always said that the person who named him was “from the north.” Qin Siyu had imagined somewhere very far north, and only recently discovered that the man had actually been from Shanghai.
The car arrived outside Qin Siyu’s boarding house.
Campus dormitories were for the elite, and most students lived off campus. Qin Siyu rented the living room of a two-bedroom apartment in a nearby building. Both bedrooms were occupied. In a corner of the living room, in the area called the “parlor,” he had hung a curtain and set up an iron bed and a desk, making a tiny space for himself.
When you had no money, you squeezed in wherever you could. Perfectly reasonable.
The car stopped in front of the apartment building. It was a low-end place, and passersby turned their heads in surprise when a luxury car suddenly appeared at the entrance.
Qin Siyu opened the door, bent toward Aston, and said, “Thank you so much. Thank you for everything.”
From the dim interior of the car, Aston looked at him and said, “Get some proper rest. You must be tired after today.”
First he’d stood in a long line, then he’d gotten into a fight, then he’d ended up at the police station.
“I’m actually all right,” Qin Siyu answered, agreeing nonetheless.
“Sean.” Just as Qin Siyu was about to shut the car door, Aston spoke again from the back seat. His eyes were still unreadable in the darkness. “Merry Christmas.”
Qin Siyu froze.
He knew Aston had said it casually, but somehow it really did make him feel a little happier.
Tomorrow was Christmas, and someone had wished him well.
Qin Siyu slowed his movement, and even his voice softened as he replied, “Merry Christmas.”
* * *
After returning “home,” Qin Siyu took a bath and read for a while.
It was strange. That evening, he often found himself thinking of Aston.
Aston extending his right hand on the beach.
Aston’s expression changing in Professor Brown’s office when Qin Siyu hooked his chin, then stepping back twice.
Aston holding him around the waist outside the dance marathon and teaching him the steps.
Aston buying two boxes of condoms in the alley by the basement bar.
Aston having a waiter drape an overcoat over his shoulders outside an upscale restaurant.
Aston discussing their paper and research questions with him in the sunlit café.
Aston catching the hat he had dropped at the wharf where they were distributing questionnaires.
Aston using a few flowers as a “mask” along both sides of his face in the university ballroom.
Aston dancing with him on the dance floor.
And Aston appearing at the police station today, then bringing him back to the university.
Qin Siyu thought it was only natural that Aston kept coming to mind.
After all, he’d never met anyone like him.
Even after turning off the light and getting beneath the covers, in the moonlight reaching the corner of the living room, Qin Siyu remembered Aston’s “Merry Christmas” once again. He recalled it for a few seconds, nuzzled into his pillow, smiled, and finally closed his eyes and fell asleep.