After returning from Yosemite, Qin Siyu spent his days feeling as though he were dreaming.
And at night, he actually began to dream.
In those dreams, beneath the moonlight, Aston’s index finger was wrapped in a genuine leather glove. Through the leather, it touched his lips. His lips trembled. Aston’s fingertip traced the corner of his mouth and slid along his lower lip, first the index finger, then the thumb. The pressure gradually increased until Aston was rubbing hard, over and over. Qin Siyu could smell the leather of the glove, the gunpowder, and even a trace of blood.
Then Aston pulled off the glove.
As he tugged, the leather stretched into creases across the back of his hand, exposing his wrist. Black leather slipped away little by little, revealing more and more white skin, with blood flowing beneath it. First came his wrist, then the back of his hand, his knuckles, his fingers… His hand was large, the tendons and veins clearly defined. At last the glove came all the way off, exposing his fingertips and smooth nails.
Aston laid that hand over Qin Siyu’s mouth again. His fingers slipped between Qin Siyu’s lips and teeth and stirred against his tongue. After being teased for a while, Qin Siyu’s tongue began to learn the rhythm, tracing circles with practiced ease. Satisfied, Aston withdrew his fingers, covered Qin Siyu’s lips with his own, and slipped his tongue into his mouth, tangling and playing with Qin Siyu’s.
It felt so real that he struggled to breathe even in his sleep.
“…!!!” Qin Siyu would always wake with a start.
Normally he ate with great concentration and slept peacefully. Nothing like this had ever happened before.
He would look down at himself in bewilderment.
Somewhere in his mind he knew it had something to do with that kind of thing. But this sort of bodily reaction had only ever happened to him occasionally on waking in the morning, and it would go away after a few minutes. Books said it was merely a matter of periodic blood flow…
Never before had he felt as he did lately, as though something inside his body were looking for an exit, trying to escape.
He didn’t know what he could do, or what he ought to do. Even the slightest recollection of the dream made his body unbearably uncomfortable. He curled up under his covers, clutching the blanket, feeling as if he couldn’t endure it.
So he could only do housework.
Wash his clothes, wash the curtains. Wash everything.
He was extraordinarily good at laundry. No sort of stain presented much difficulty.
When everything was washed, he carefully folded it into neat, straight piles. Then he swept and scrubbed the floor, wiped down the furniture, and cleaned the windowsills.
He became so absorbed in the chores that he forgot everything else, and then he felt better.
He also thought of Aston often.
Before leaving Yosemite, Qin Siyu had followed his memories back to the place where they encountered the bear.
He searched for a long time, walking through fallen leaves, before finally finding it.
The bear’s corpse was horrifying. Qin Siyu felt around for a long time where Aston had stood the day before, restraining himself, and eventually managed to find a spent cartridge case from Aston’s gun.
He took the casing back to school, washed it clean, and placed it in a box with plenty of cotton wool underneath. Recently, he often opened the box for no reason and stared blankly at the casing for a very long time.
Nestled in the white cotton was a single spent cartridge case.
He had treasured the chip from the underground casino just as carefully, putting it in a box for safekeeping.
It was a small candy tin. He had searched for several days before finding a pretty little container in the Italian district, thin and flat and small. Its design showed a few pansies. Even the candies that came inside tasted sweet and refreshing.
He had even placed the book Aston had found for him beside his bed.
That poetry collection.
There had been an extraordinarily beautiful sunset on the day he set it by his pillow.
When he opened it, the two poems he had copied out himself were still tucked inside.
He gently unfolded the paper.
The moment it opened, his heart gave a start.
From his handwriting, he could distinctly sense how solemn and earnest he had felt back then.
He knew his own handwriting too well. He could tell that every word and every stroke of those two poems had been written and preserved by his former self with painstaking concentration and care.
Reading the poems now, he still felt as though they were describing Aston.
He read them carefully again.
Without realizing it, he began reading aloud. But his voice was not its usual voice. It was soft and gentle, as if he were trying to use the gentlest, most beautiful voice he possessed to recite the poems to that person just once.
On the second reading, like a thief, whenever he reached words such as “She” or “Her,” he quietly lowered his voice and replaced them with “He” or “His.”
Whenever he spoke these words referring to someone of his own sex, Qin Siyu’s heart pounded in alarm.
Yet alongside that alarm came a secret thrill, almost a feeling of exhilaration. His heart could pound with fear even as his spirit soared.
He read:
“And all that’s best of dark and bright,
Meet in… his aspect, and his eyes…”
He had never known that simply reciting a poem could feel so private and so thrilling.
It was as though he were committing some shameful act. No one knew, yet he felt as if he were testing every god in heaven.
He also wondered: That sheet of paper… had Aston seen it?
He… surely couldn’t have worked out whom all those words were written for?
Qin Siyu felt guilty.
From then on, the poetry collection remained beside his bed, the thin sheet of paper tucked gently between its pages.
He never returned it, even though he had memorized both poems long ago.
He kept recalling how Aston had helped retrieve the book that day. Aston had walked through the garden, searching to either side. Then he’d spotted a corner of the book, gone over, picked it up with his long fingers, and shaken away the garden soil.
He… they were connected.
Perhaps they were friends, or perhaps merely acquaintances. Whatever they were, they were connected. The book was proof.
Also, after coming back from Yosemite, Qin Siyu had heard about Aston winning an “American Baby” competition as a child, prize money and all. He became obsessed with searching through every newspaper in the library from that year to find the contest.
He searched for ages. Finally, he actually found it.
The newspaper carried photographs of the winners. He spread it across a table and stretched it carefully toward either side with his fingertips until there was not the slightest wrinkle or distortion. Only then did he lean in to look, closely, almost reverently.
He had never imagined he would one day know even a little of what Aston looked like as a child.
He ought only to have watched Aston from afar. Yet because of that contest, he was able to learn just a little more, however little it was.
Strangely, as he stared at the photograph, he felt not only that the child was exceedingly beautiful, but also a faint sense of familiarity, as though he had seen him before.
Such a pretty yet indifferent face, hardly resembling a child’s.
“…” Qin Siyu had an excellent memory. He compared Aston’s picture with a scene lodged in his mind over and over, turning it around in his thoughts. One moment he was convinced it was the same person; the next, he thought it couldn’t be.
Toward the end of April that year, the school’s Chinese student organization went on an outing.
It had originally been a Qingming Festival activity, postponed until the end of the month. There weren’t many people: a handful of Chinese American students and a few students from China, and that was everyone.
Elio’s Notes: Qingming (清明), also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day, is a Chinese spring festival for remembering ancestors and tending family graves. Spring outings and picnics are also traditional Qingming customs, explaining the student group’s delayed outdoor gathering. Source: Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art.
At one point, they sat on the grass, picked flowers, and wove wreaths.
The female students favored red blossoms, along with orange and yellow. They said those colors looked wonderfully vivid and pretty against black hair.
Qin Siyu looked over intently, found it was true, and praised them. “They really do look lovely.”
“Right?” the girls said.
Qin Siyu picked flowers, too.
But he chose mostly blue ones, with occasional blossoms of other colors.
He worked very earnestly and with the utmost care, unwilling to knock off even a single petal. He wound one blossom after another around the stems, leaving a circle, and finally tied off the ends.
Qin Siyu was so deft with his hands that even the girls were impressed.
“Sean,” they asked, “why are you making yours blue?”
Qin Siyu’s fingers paused. In a low voice he said, “Because it goes with his eyes.”
“???” The others asked, “Whose eyes?”
But Qin Siyu merely shook his head and fell silent.
Once the wreath was finished, he took it back to his room and hung it on the wall. Every so often he stared at it blankly, imagining that person wearing the wreath he’d woven. Yet before long he would remember that even the mask the man wore to a university masquerade had been studded with gold, silver, and glittering jewels. Why would he value something Qin Siyu had made for him?
After returning to campus from the outing, Qin Siyu discovered… that a female journalism student was selling photographs of Aston and the others.
Not just Kingsley Aston, but other well-known students, including Aston’s good friend Cliff.
The girl was a gifted photographer. Qin Siyu had seen her work in the student newspaper. From a poor family herself, she had photographed a number of documentary scenes of the Great Depression, which had been published in the university paper.
He didn’t know why. Perhaps she, too, was short of money. At any rate, she had begun selling information packets.
She knew exactly how to tailor what she offered to different people. Qin Siyu actually believed Aston knew about it but had chosen not to interfere.
The materials were all public. They came from campus bulletin-board announcements of students’ academic and athletic honors, from university yearbooks that mentioned outstanding students, from newspapers and magazines that reported their achievements in more detail, or from publicity distributed by clubs and sports teams. She had merely compiled it all.
After the photographs and text were reprinted, somehow an astonishing number of people bought them…
Those students had plenty of admirers.
Strangely, it wasn’t just admirers. Plenty of other students bought the packets, too.
Qin Siyu asked a good friend, “What are you buying this stuff for?”
“…I don’t know,” his friend said. “People say Kingsley Aston, Endicott Cliff, and the others are bound to become famous. At the very least, they’ll be tycoons, magnates, giants of business. Maybe they’ll even run for president! Who knows? When that happens, we can boast about having been their classmates and tell people what it was like back then. Show off a bit, get some attention! The packet is really comprehensive, too. There are photos of winning football championships and things like that.”
Qin Siyu: “…I see.”
Wasn’t that exaggerating things?
His friend went on, “There could be all sorts of reasons, of course. There are loads of people secretly in love with them, too.”
Qin Siyu: “…Oh.”
“It’s only a fantasy,” his friend said. “They’re bound to marry into other rich families. Ordinary women?” She pointed to her head. “You’d have to be crazy to entertain such a thought.”
Qin Siyu: “…I see.”
He wasn’t even an ordinary woman.
He was an ordinary man.
Or perhaps not even an “ordinary man.” He struggled just to get by every single day.
“But the photographs really are good,” his friend continued. “There’s one from a boxing match. Wow. Blood was running down from the corner of his brow. He looked like a god of slaughter, so different from how he usually looks, and even more handsome for it. I had no idea he boxed. That’s so dangerous.”
“It’s normal,” Qin Siyu said. “People of his class attach great importance to ‘masculinity.’ I think they all have to learn things like that. Lots of them even send their children to military academies.”
“I see. There’s another from an equestrian competition. The horse is completely black, and Kingsley Aston is wearing riding clothes and spurs that gleam gold. The university magazine photographer got a perfect shot just as he and the horse were soaring over an obstacle. Well, he’s definitely someone people pay attention to.”
Qin Siyu: “…Oh.”
“And there’s Endicott Cliff—”
Qin Siyu didn’t hear another word.
Once he got home, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
It felt as though a kitten were scratching at his heart. He wondered what Aston looked like riding a horse over an obstacle. And what did he look like with blood running from the corner of his brow?
He felt a profound fear, too.
If he went and “bought photographs,” wouldn’t that make him another person “secretly in love”?
He could say those dreams hadn’t been intentional. What could dreams prove? Qin Sanfu always dreamed of getting rich. Had he become rich?
As for writing those words, copying the poems, saving the cartridge case, and keeping the casino chip, he could say he was simply fond of a friend.
But… wanting to buy photographs was crossing a line.
He would never boast to anyone else about his acquaintance with Aston, so what legitimate reason could he have to buy them?
None at all.
He was frightened by himself. Liking men was terrifying.
He might die for it.
Lately, when he woke from those dreams, his hands trembled slightly.
He no longer even dared sleep at the places where he worked. He was afraid of calling out a name in his sleep. A man’s name.
At times like these, he was actually grateful that the person was Kingsley Aston.
The two of them could never be together.
In this era, even being friends was considered “rebellious.” They didn’t belong to the same world.
So he should kill the feeling.
Perhaps next time he would fall for a girl.
Perhaps he would spend a quiet, stable life hand in hand with some girl from Chinatown. Perhaps the fluttering he felt now would happen again, for someone else.
Was that possible? It was… probably possible.
Yet in spite of all that, for reasons he couldn’t explain, Qin Siyu quietly asked someone else to buy the materials for him.
“Get me the Kingsley Aston packets.”
His friend asked, “Which set? Academic? Sports?”
Qin Siyu said, “…All of them, then.”
His friend: “???”
Qin Siyu kept his feelings under control. “Didn’t you say they might be useful in the future?”
His friend asked, “…And Endicott Cliff’s and the others’?”
“No.”
His friend: “???”
Qin Siyu: “…I’m betting on Kingsley Aston. He’ll become famous, a tycoon, or maybe even president someday. Is that a problem?”
“…All right.”
The whole collection wasn’t cheap. Qin Siyu worked a few extra days to pay for it.
But eventually the materials did arrive.
A thick stack.
Qin Siyu didn’t tear open the package immediately to “admire” the photographs.
One quiet night, on a day that Qin Sanfu’s almanac declared “auspicious for all undertakings,” Qin Siyu chose midnight, the hour when the old day became the new. He bathed, washed his hands thoroughly, and only then sat at his table and opened the package.
Before that, he had even cleaned and tidied the little “room” partitioned off by curtains.
He was about to learn more about Aston.
He restrained himself. Rather than flipping through everything in a rush and spoiling the experience, he read each page and studied each photograph, one after another, carefully and earnestly.
His friend hadn’t been wrong.
Aston was dazzling.
He guided a horse over an obstacle with effortless, easy grace. In the photograph, the sunlight, the tips of his hair, and his spurs all gleamed with the same color, bold and free.
After emerging from the water at a swimming competition, he casually pushed back his hair. His manner was languid, his muscles strong. He looked down, while everyone behind him waited for their results. He had no need to wait. He’d finished almost an entire body length ahead.
After a boxing match, blood ran from his temple, yet his gaze remained cold. He happened to glance toward the camera, his lips drawn into a straight line.
There were photographs after tennis matches, too…
His academic achievements were just as brilliant.
Giving a speech as an honors student…
Being invited into one of the most prestigious honor societies and accepted as a member…
Competition prizes, activity awards, projects, papers…
There were even photographs from daily life.
One was taken from the side. Aston stood in his usual relaxed pose, one hand turned backward against his waist while the other gently scratched a cat’s neck. His fingers were long and his knuckles pronounced. The way they bent and straightened was pleasing to the eye.
Qin Siyu quietly put everything into a folder, a yellow kraft-paper envelope, and carefully laid it in a drawer.
Very good.
Qin Siyu thought: Aston would have a happy life. A brilliant, splendid life far above everyone else, a life everyone envied and coveted. A happy life.
There should be no blemish on it.