Shao Wu stared at him for several seconds before he was finally certain that it really was Yang Shuyi.
Sister Shan was clearly startled too. She shot to her feet. “Yang Shuyi, why are you here?”
Yang Shuyi walked into the room and stopped a few steps from the bed.
“I came to see him,” he said. “Teacher, could you let us talk alone?”
“You two…” Sister Shan turned to Shao Wu, silently asking whether he was all right with that. Shao Wu’s mind was still blank, but his body answered before his thoughts did. He nodded to her.
Sister Shan stood, still hesitant. “Call me immediately if anything happens, understood?”
“Okay…”
“Don’t worry about the school. If anything comes up, I’ll contact you.”
“Okay… thanks.”
Only after Sister Shan’s footsteps disappeared down the corridor did Shao Wu finally process it: Yang Shuyi had actually come.
He was darker, thinner, his hair at the forehead damp with sweat and clumped into strands. He took a few steps forward and stopped beside the bed, close enough that Shao Wu could touch him simply by reaching out.
Had he rushed back from Aba? Shao Wu caught the scent of travel on him, leather and gasoline and the cold, sharp air of the plateau. He was even still wearing his shell jacket, its fabric smooth and stiff, making the lines of his whole body seem sharper.
After thinking for a moment, Shao Wu asked, “Did you hear everything just now?”
Yang Shuyi did not answer. Instead, he braced both hands on his knees and bent down, his face suddenly close to Shao Wu’s.
Maybe it was because he had tanned, but his eyes looked brighter than they ever had before.
Shao Wu stared at him blankly. Two seconds later, tears suddenly spilled from Yang Shuyi’s eyes. He was crying.
Shao Wu said, “You…”
Yang Shuyi quickly turned away, wiped his tears with his back to Shao Wu, then turned around again. “How many stitches?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then I’ll ask the doctor…”
“Hey.” Shao Wu had no choice but to admit it. “Seven.”
“Can I see?”
“It’s wrapped in gauze, so you can’t see anything… It’s nothing, really. They just shaved off a patch of hair.”
Yang Shuyi knelt on one knee on the bed and leaned over, gently turning Shao Wu by the shoulder to inspect the wound at the back of his head. But a thick pad of cotton gauze covered it, with two rounds of bandage wrapped over that, so there really was nothing to see.
Yang Shuyi asked softly, “Does it hurt now?”
Shao Wu thought, since he was already here and had already looked, he might as well tell the truth. “Like hell. The painkiller wore off.”
Yang Shuyi said nothing.
“Do you have cigarettes?” Shao Wu asked. “Give me one.”
“This is a hospital…”
“Right. I forgot.” Smoking was prohibited in hospitals.
Yang Shuyi let go, withdrew his knee from the bed, and stood beside it.
Shao Wu asked again, “You heard what we were saying just now?”
“Mm.”
“So you knew all along… Looking back, you hinted at it a few times too, didn’t you?” Shao Wu was lying down while Yang Shuyi stood, and from his angle he could see the silver button on Yang Shuyi’s jeans perfectly. “Before the gaokao, you told me you weren’t going to study in Beijing. And that night when I went to Southwest University to find you, you said you had no interest in dating… But later you got together with Zou Xin. You gave me plenty of hints. I just didn’t understand them.”
“Shao Wu…”
“Of course I don’t blame you. I must’ve annoyed you with all that pining, right? And you couldn’t exactly reject me outright when I was only secretly in love with you.” Shao Wu kept talking on his own. “It would’ve been better if we’d cleared things up earlier. If I’d confessed sooner, or you’d rejected me sooner… we wouldn’t have dragged it out until now.”
“Shao Wu, do you hate me?”
“No, I don’t hate you. I’m just… I don’t know how to put it.” Shao Wu kept staring at the button. “I’m a little sad. Not because of you, because of myself. For all those years, I was dreaming. I kept imagining that maybe you’d accept me, that one day you’d suddenly stop liking girls and be with me… But it turns out that while I was dreaming, you had already rejected me. It feels like… like I wasted all those years.”
Yang Shuyi said, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. You heard what I told Sister Shan just now, didn’t you?” Shao Wu closed his eyes and paused. “I didn’t do all this for who you are now. Maybe I just can’t let go of what happened back then, in high school.”
“You did it for the high-school version of me.”
“Mm.”
I’m lying to myself again, Shao Wu thought.
Whether he was speaking to Sister Shan or Yang Shuyi, he could make everything sound reasonable by saying, I did it for the old Yang Shuyi. But when he faced himself, he knew he was lying. What did “the old one” and “the current one” even mean? Yang Shuyi had always been Yang Shuyi. Through all these years, while time drifted slowly past like clouds and water, Shao Wu had kept loving him. He still remembered exactly how furious he had been when Gao Shenguo mentioned the ninety thousand yuan. He had thought that ninety thousand yuan would have been enough for Yang Shuyi to attend graduate school. In that moment he knew that everything he was doing was for Yang Shuyi, for who he had been and who he was now. How could a person love someone this much? Fan Pengfei bribing teachers with ninety thousand yuan had absolutely nothing to do with Yang Shuyi, yet Shao Wu irrationally felt that heaven itself was blind, that the person who deserved to keep studying had been denied the chance. It was unfair. For Yang Shuyi, he was willing to wage war against even that intangible sliver of “unfairness.”
“So you…” Yang Shuyi bent down and looked directly into Shao Wu’s eyes. “You don’t like me anymore, is that it?”
“It’s not that I stopped liking you,” Shao Wu said. “I gave up hoping.”
“…You gave up?”
“Yes. I gave up.”
Yang Shuyi said again, “I’m sorry.”
Shao Wu repeated himself too. “You don’t have to apologize to me.”
“I’m not apologizing for the things you did for me.”
“Then why?”
“For…” His voice trembled slightly. “For not liking you before.”
In an instant, Shao Wu’s voice began to tremble too. “What about now, Yang Shuyi? What about now?”
Yang Shuyi did not answer. He lowered his head and kissed Shao Wu.
The scent of his long journey enveloped Shao Wu. The kiss was light, nothing more than Yang Shuyi’s dry lips rubbing against his. Shao Wu clutched the collar of his shell jacket, his breathing growing faster. In a daze, he imagined they were somewhere in the wilderness, surrounded by the scent of mountains, forests, and the rushing Min River. Yang Shuyi was like a hard, unyielding wind. Shao Wu knew which way the wind blew, yet could never catch it, until this moment, when at last he caught the wind.
Yang Shuyi straightened slightly, breathing a little hard himself.
For a while, the two of them only looked at each other without speaking.
At last Yang Shuyi reached out and touched Shao Wu’s hair. “There’s so much blood.”
“That was from before they stitched me up. It got in my hair,” Shao Wu said. “I haven’t washed it yet.”
“Let me wipe it clean for you.”
“Okay.”
Shao Wu got up and slowly stood in the disposable slippers the hospital had given him. Yang Shuyi asked nervously, “Can you walk?”
“I can.”
Even so, Yang Shuyi took off his shell jacket and put an arm around Shao Wu’s waist to support him.
The private room had its own bathroom. It was very clean, but also cramped, and the moment two grown men stepped inside, it felt crowded. Yang Shuyi brought in a chair and had Shao Wu sit facing him. “Wait here for me.”
He hurried out of the room. Shao Wu sat on the chair without saying a word and waited. He had counted silently to 522 by the time Yang Shuyi pushed the door open again, carrying a newly bought basin and towel.
Yang Shuyi entered the bathroom, turned on the hot water, tested it with his hand, then brought the basin over and filled it halfway.
He soaked the snow-white towel and wrung it out hard. As he twisted the cloth, Shao Wu watched the muscles stand out along his forearm, long and clean-lined, just as they had seven years ago when Shao Wu had secretly watched him play games at the internet café.
Yang Shuyi folded the towel several times and said softly, “Tell me if it hurts.”
“Mm.”
Shao Wu closed his eyes and felt the faint warmth radiating from the towel. Yang Shuyi gently lifted a lock of his hair and slowly rubbed it clean. Gradually Shao Wu’s face began to heat, as though even that lock of hair had somehow developed a sense of touch.
After rinsing the towel several times, the water in the basin turned cloudy. Yang Shuyi poured it out and fetched another half basin. This time he unfolded the towel and pressed it with his fingers, gently wiping Shao Wu’s scalp well away from the wound. Shao Wu reacted instantly, an unbearable tingling itch running straight from his scalp down into his lower abdomen.
Shao Wu did not know how he managed to endure it. By the time Yang Shuyi changed the water for the third time, Shao Wu darted a glance at the mirror and saw that his entire face, along with his ears and neck, had gone bright red.
He knew Yang Shuyi must have seen what a mess he was.
His body was like a string willingly placed beneath Yang Shuyi’s fingers. The slightest pluck would immediately draw a long, trembling note from inside him. And now, of all times, now…
“Shao Wu.” Yang Shuyi finally set down the towel. He was standing, his voice coming from above Shao Wu’s head. “I was selfish.”
“…”
“I should’ve rejected you sooner, but I didn’t, because you…” He reached out and gently cupped Shao Wu’s face, his palm warm. “Because except for Grandma and my dad, you’re the person in this world who has treated me best.”
“I was selfish… When I felt most inferior, when I looked down on myself the most, when I thought I was the biggest bastard alive, you were the only one who was good to me. I still remember the day I came back from Wenchuan. Do you know what it was like after the earthquake? Wenchuan was hell. Every night people were crying, people were shouting, asking where the doctors were. I saw so many people trapped under collapsed buildings. At first they were calling for help, still able to talk to the people outside. Then they couldn’t anymore. They talked less and less, until eventually… there was no sound. When I came back from Wenchuan, I almost didn’t want to live either. It was hell. How was I supposed to come back from hell and pretend nothing had happened and just keep living?” His voice choked. “If I hadn’t fought with my dad that night, he wouldn’t have taken Auntie Xiajuan to Yingxiu. Grandpa and Grandma never said it, but I know I bear some responsibility for their son’s death, and for Longlong becoming an orphan. Back then I truly thought I deserved to die. I should’ve just died in Wenchuan. Shao Wu, the day I came back, I didn’t know how to face them. And then you… you asked me, ‘What happened to your hand?’”
“That was when I thought, you’ll be my friend for life… But later I realized you liked me. You applied to Chongqing University because of me. You liked me so much that I was afraid to reject you, because I knew if I did, we’d be finished. Every time you came to see me at school, I was torn. I was happy you came, but I also wished you wouldn’t, because I couldn’t give you anything in return… In sophomore year I even tried masturbating while thinking about you, but I really couldn’t get hard…”
Shao Wu looked up. A tear fell perfectly onto his cheek. Yang Shuyi was crying.
“Shao Wu,” he said, “I’m a bastard. I don’t deserve you liking me.”
Shao Wu lifted a hand and used the pad of his finger to wipe Yang Shuyi’s tear from his own cheek.
Yang Shuyi was crying for him. Did that mean that in this lifetime, even if Shao Wu could never become his lover, he had at least become someone very important to him?
Shao Wu’s Adam’s apple moved. He knew exactly what he was doing. Once he crossed this line, they truly, truly would never be able to remain friends. But he could not stop himself. When it came to Yang Shuyi, he never could.
Shao Wu raised a hand and lightly picked at the button of Yang Shuyi’s jeans, the same silver button.
“Yang Shuyi.” Despair and hope tangled together at his lips. “Can we do it once? Just once?” Whether Yang Shuyi accepted him or not, they could no longer remain friends. Shao Wu looked up at him, silently begging with his eyes for him to nod. He had wanted him for seven years. Whether it was repayment or disillusionment, this once, he wanted to have him, even if only for a moment.
Yang Shuyi looked back at Shao Wu, the tracks of tears still wet at the corners of his eyes.
After a long while, he nodded.
Shao Wu’s breath caught. He stood and locked the bathroom door.
He crouched in front of Yang Shuyi and looked straight up at him. Reaching out, he undid the button of Yang Shuyi’s jeans, then slowly lowered the zipper. He moved very slowly, watching Yang Shuyi the whole time, already prepared for the possibility that Yang Shuyi might suddenly shove him away. If he did, Shao Wu would never beg again. This was the last scrap of dignity he had left.
But Yang Shuyi did not push him away. He let Shao Wu pull down his jeans, revealing strong thighs and gray boxer briefs. Shao Wu swallowed. This was the first time he had ever done anything like this. He had seen it in gay porn before, but actually doing it was another matter entirely, and worse, the person in front of him was Yang Shuyi.
Shao Wu said quietly, “Tell me if I hurt you.” Yang Shuyi did not answer. He only rested a hand on Shao Wu’s shoulder, a silent permission.
With trembling fingers, Shao Wu pulled down Yang Shuyi’s underwear.
Yang Shuyi’s penis was exposed in front of him, still soft.
Shao Wu closed his eyes, leaned in, and gently licked him. He could not describe the taste. It was not pleasant, but somehow, because it was Yang Shuyi, it felt as though he could accept anything.
Shao Wu licked him several more times, then opened his mouth and took the tip inside. Careful to keep his teeth out of the way, he worked his tongue from light touches to firmer strokes. Before long, he felt Yang Shuyi harden in his mouth. Fluid from the tip mixed with his saliva and he swallowed it, his mouth growing dry from being held open so long.
Shao Wu pressed his tongue down hard and fought his gag reflex as he took more of Yang Shuyi’s erection into his mouth. He wanted to go deeper, to make Yang Shuyi feel better, until the tip pressed against the soft flesh deep at the roof of his mouth. He muffled a cough and heard Yang Shuyi say, “That’s enough, Shao Wu.”
Shao Wu kept licking him. His legs had gone numb from crouching, so he shifted into a half-kneel, no longer caring about the pain in his head. His head moved between Yang Shuyi’s thighs, and Yang Shuyi’s low breathing pushed him onward like waves.
“Enough, Shao Wu. Shao Wu…” Shao Wu had no idea how much time had passed. Saliva was already running from the corner of his mouth when Yang Shuyi pressed down on his shoulder and said hoarsely, “That’s enough.”
Shao Wu let him slip from his mouth and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
The corners of Yang Shuyi’s eyes were red. He stood and stepped out of the jeans pooled around his calves, then removed his underwear, then his T-shirt. Shao Wu, trembling, started to undress too, but Yang Shuyi caught his wrist. “I’ll do it. Careful of your wound.”
Shao Wu obediently raised his arms. Yang Shuyi carefully rolled the hem of his T-shirt upward. When he reached the collar, he held the neckline with one hand while keeping the other hovering above Shao Wu’s wound. “Don’t move your head.”
With painstaking care, he slid the collar over the back of his own hand so that it never touched Shao Wu’s wound at all.
Shao Wu pulled off his sweatpants. His erection was already tenting his white underwear.
Naked in front of each other, both of them were nervous. Yang Shuyi turned on the shower, waited for the water to warm, then rinsed Shao Wu’s body. Shao Wu wrapped his arms around Yang Shuyi’s waist and rested his burning cheek against his shoulder. Warm water ran over their tense bodies as they held each other. Both were hard, their erections occasionally brushing together. Shao Wu said, “Let’s just do it… We don’t have lubricant.”
“It’ll hurt a lot, won’t it?”
“It’s okay.”
Yang Shuyi was silent for several seconds, left the bathroom, and returned quickly holding a half-empty tube of sunscreen.
“Can we use this?” he asked.
“…Okay.”
Shao Wu squeezed some sunscreen onto his fingertip, lowered his head, and reached behind himself. Yang Shuyi stood in front of him, his breathing growing heavier.
“…I think I’m ready.”
“If it hurts, say so.”
“Mm.”
Shao Wu braced both hands against the wall as Yang Shuyi slowly entered him from behind. It hurt, badly. Shao Wu gritted his teeth as tears came to his eyes, but he did not tell him to stop.
It felt like a century before Yang Shuyi was finally all the way inside. By then Shao Wu hurt so much he had almost gone numb.
Yang Shuyi began to move slowly, both hands gripping Shao Wu’s waist tightly. It still hurt. Shao Wu closed his eyes and touched himself as well. To his own surprise, even through the pain he was still hard. The thought of Yang Shuyi moving inside him sent pleasure crashing through him like a gale. He was a leaf swept high into the wind, dizzy and overwhelmed as desire surged through him, and before long he came.
“Shuyi… Yang Shuyi…” Shao Wu turned his head and called his name.
Yang Shuyi leaned in and kissed him hard.