After things ended with Aston, Qin Siyu felt as though he’d split into two people.
On one side he drifted through his days in a daze, like a masked, wandering ghost. On the other, his work and studies seemed to come even more naturally than before.
His application to declare a major was approved, and when spring came he began choosing courses in it.
Having prepared so thoroughly before entering the program, he performed exceptionally well in his specialized classes.
At the same time, wanting to draw at least some of his attention away from his feelings, he worked harder than ever. He spent every day either buried in the library or working in a laboratory. Every assignment, every experiment, was done to something approaching perfection.
He was dexterous and conscientious. The moment he entered the biochemistry program, one of his laboratory professors invited him to join his research team as an assistant.
The professor was keeping up with the times by researching viruses, which meant cultivating cells. But this was an era without antibiotics, and tissue cultures were easily contaminated. Often every last cell died within days. Losing his temper with the students didn’t help, and progress was slow. Now that he’d discovered Qin Siyu, he quickly brought him onto the team to take charge of the cultures, paying careful attention to hygiene and cleanliness.
On his very first day in the laboratory, the cells Qin Siyu cultivated survived for a full two weeks.
The professor was beside himself with excitement and suddenly filled with confidence.
He was a well-known scholar whose papers appeared in leading journals and often genuinely sparked debate or advanced the field. Qin Siyu knew that if he could work on projects with this professor, publish papers, and perhaps even earn his recommendation, admission to a top medical school after graduation would no longer be a distant dream.
As for sleep, he occasionally took a little medication at night. It was manageable.
His work at the hospital seemed to be going more smoothly too.
The doctors and nurses no longer treated Qin Siyu as a volunteer, or at least not merely as a volunteer. They entrusted him with more specialized and complicated tasks. Jobs in this era weren’t divided into rigidly defined roles, and Qin Siyu treasured the opportunity. However busy he became, he made time to go to the hospital twice a week.
Even the hospital’s CEO knew him and had praised him.
Only, every time he entered San Francisco, his heart gave a painful twist.
After all, for several months, every time he’d finished work he’d gone to see Aston.
How eagerly he’d looked forward to it, even while knowing it was “wrong.”
Although he’d always wondered: was that kind of love really “wrong”?
They were so alike, so perfectly attuned, loved each other so much and with such devotion. They’d been so happy together.
Their harmony, their affection, surpassed that of everyone else.
Why was it “wrong”?
Because they couldn’t have children?
Was human love only about having children?
Children of the “right race”?
What about human feelings themselves?
What about infatuation and rapture, the communion and collision of minds, the moments of being moved, the thousand complex, elevated emotions, tenderness turning through a hundred shades and hearts surging like waves, the trembling of souls and bodies, the urge to weep, even the resolve to die for someone? What were all those things supposed to mean?
Several times, exhausted after a hospital shift, Qin Siyu instinctively walked toward the stop for the bus to Sunset.
Twice, he even got on.
Only then did he wake up as if from a dream.
He fled the bus, fled San Francisco, fled back to Berkeley, but his heart kept trembling. It’s been months already. Can’t I change a single habit?
Or is there some part of me that still refuses to change?
That day Qin Siyu hurried to the hospital again for his volunteer shift.
It wasn’t especially busy. A passing private car had struck a child and broken his leg, prompting the doctors to complain there were too many cars; a woman was having a difficult delivery, and the doctors insisted that everyone wash their hands thoroughly to prevent infection; two drunks had split their heads open fighting over the “right” to urinate under a tree, and the nurses said that ever since Prohibition was repealed the previous December, there had been drunken troublemakers every week. But overall it wasn’t a particularly busy night.
Late in the night, after escorting both drunkards to the surgical ward, Qin Siyu returned to the lobby and heard several emergency nurses whispering excitedly: “So attractive…” “Insanely handsome…” “Ridiculously good-looking…”
“…” Qin Siyu walked over for reasons he couldn’t explain. “Who are you talking about?”
Who was attractive, insanely handsome, ridiculously good-looking?
They told him that an extraordinarily handsome man had just been brought into the emergency department. He was almost impossibly good-looking. Apparently he’d encountered robbers nearby and had been stabbed in the left side of his abdomen. They’d brought him to the closest emergency room, at this hospital.
The nurses added, “Ever since the economy collapsed, so many people who used to be respectable are robbing others. There are so many cases.”
Qin Siyu’s heart lurched.
But he knew there were handsome men all over San Francisco, far too many to count. Why should it be that particular man? Aston would never come to this part of town in the middle of the night. His home was in Pacific Heights.
Still, Qin Siyu couldn’t put his mind at ease.
Especially when the nurses mentioned an “upper-class feeling.”
So handsome it was unbelievable, and with the bearing of high society—
Then one of the nurses added, “He’s lucky, though. He was right across the street from the hospital when he was robbed.”
Qin Siyu: “…”
Across the street from the hospital?
Qin Siyu told himself that San Francisco was teeming with men like that. Wasn’t Cliff one of them, handsome and unmistakably upper-class? Yet his feet wouldn’t stop. He broke into a run, not daring to waste a second, looking everywhere, searching everywhere.
One doctor seemed to call him over for something. “Sean, please—”
But Qin Siyu’s mind automatically discarded the information, ignoring it. It took several seconds for the doctor’s words to register.
The doctor froze in surprise.
Qin Siyu turned his head stiffly, but the doctor had already caught someone else.
He looked into every corner. Finally, somewhere down the hall, Qin Siyu found the newly admitted patient.
Several medical workers clustered around the bed, blocking the view. Qin Siyu took two steps closer. Then, somehow, even though he could only see a few strands of hair hanging near the head of the bed, he recognized the patient instantly.
Kingsy.
It really was him!
Qin Siyu felt as if his heart had been seized in an iron fist. A dull ache gripped his chest, and a roaring filled his head. All the high and low voices of men and women around him seemed to merge into a chaotic noise. Time itself appeared to stop.
He… how is he?
Is it serious?
Qin Siyu’s hands trembled faintly. The air around him felt thick and sticky, wrapping around him until he could scarcely breathe.
There were no antibiotics in this era. A large open wound could be fatal.
Why?
What was he doing here?
Where was his driver?
Suddenly Qin Siyu was overwhelmed by regret.
If he’d still been at Aston’s side, perhaps Aston wouldn’t have encountered such a thing.
At this hour Aston might have been waiting for him at the Sunset house, ready for Qin Siyu to come after his shift.
The invisible hand around his heart seemed to tighten further, squeezing it mercilessly until the blood felt ready to burst out.
He regretted everything so fiercely that, although nobody could have foreseen this, he couldn’t stop blaming himself.
“Sean!” Dr. Sterling turned and suddenly noticed him. He shouted, “Come here and help me hold him still!”
Qin Siyu rushed over.
They were debriding the wound.
Without antibiotics, an injury from a knife like this had to be washed with medical saline, excess torn flesh cut away, and possibly gauze packed deep into the wound to clean it out.
There was no time for general anesthesia, so they could only use a local anesthetic. The patient had refused cocaine, which left procaine. It wasn’t addictive, but its effect was weaker than cocaine’s and wore off sooner.
In other words, the patient could still feel pain, perhaps severe pain. As time passed, the anesthetic might have worn off almost completely by the final steps, leaving him in agony.
That was why Dr. Sterling wanted Qin Siyu to hold him down.
“All right!” Qin Siyu steadied himself, took a breath, and looked at the wound.
It was on Aston’s lower left abdomen. Blood obscured its shape.
“Fortunately, no internal organs were injured,” Dr. Sterling told Qin Siyu as he worked. “He’s muscular, and the muscle layer is thick. He broke away immediately, so the knife didn’t enter the abdominal cavity.”
Qin Siyu said nothing.
Thank goodness.
It had only gone into the muscle.
His gaze moved to Aston’s face.
Still “insanely handsome,” still “ridiculously good-looking.”
Aston had been looking at him all along. Their eyes locked.
Qin Siyu said softly, “It is all right.”
It’s all right.
Aston kept staring without blinking.
Qin Siyu tried again. “You are going to be fine.”
You’re going to get better.
Aston still gave no response.
At last Qin Siyu whispered, “I am here. I’ll be here with you. I am not going anywhere.”
I’m here. I’ll stay right here with you. I won’t go anywhere.
At those words, Aston finally relaxed and allowed Dr. Sterling to continue.
Dr. Sterling finished his preparations, disinfected the uninjured skin around the wound with a cotton swab, and picked up the medical saline. “But I have to clean this thoroughly. The next few days will be critical and dangerous.”
It was much better than a wound that had penetrated the abdominal cavity, but they still couldn’t afford to be careless.
“So the first thing is, hold him still!” Dr. Sterling reminded him.
“Okay.” Qin Siyu stepped forward and placed his hand on Aston’s bare chest, pressing him down.
Beneath his palm, he felt Aston’s rapid breathing, the rise and fall of his chest.
Qin Siyu looked at Aston, and Aston looked back. Their eyes met at a moment when one of them had narrowly escaped death and danger still remained. All the background noise and the distant, sorrowful future ceased to matter.
Only the most fundamental, essential feeling remained.
They were still in love with each other.
Please don’t let this be the last time I see you.
Dr. Sterling began. Saline flowed over the wound.
Qin Siyu felt the muscles tighten beneath his hand. Aston turned his head away and covered his eyes with one arm, as if refusing to reveal the slightest trace of suffering or pain in his expression.
He inhaled deeply and exhaled heavily. At times he went utterly still, his teeth clenched and his jaw taut.
Dr. Sterling poured some hydrogen peroxide into the wound to kill anaerobic bacteria and wash away debris. It foamed, flushing more blood out. He rinsed the area again with saline.
Qin Siyu could see tiny beads of sweat beginning to form beneath Aston’s neck.
Now the inside of the wound was visible.
Dr. Sterling picked up some gauze with forceps, soaked it in alcohol, and cleaned the skin around the wound and its edges.
As he wiped the edges, the hand Aston had pressed over his eyes clenched, and the veins stood out along his wrist.
“…” Qin Siyu watched him. One hand remained on his chest. With the other, he felt around until he found Aston’s hand resting beside him on the bed, and grasped the back of it.
That hand stiffened slightly.
Wanting to relieve his pain, Qin Siyu held it tightly.
He told himself that this was part of his duty. As a hospital volunteer, he ought to do everything he could to ease patients’ suffering and comfort them.
He would do the same for anyone else.
Finally Dr. Sterling inspected the inside of the wound, folded gauze to the appropriate size and shape, and packed it in. The wound would not be sutured. It would be filled with gauze to allow tissue fluid to drain and prevent infection. Over the next few days the damaged tissue would continue releasing fluid, and that fluid could allow bacteria to thrive, so it had to be drained. Many bacteria favored enclosed environments; leaving a wound open and exposed to oxygen could also suppress them.
The anesthetic had already worn off. As Dr. Sterling worked inside the wound and packed the gauze, Aston was in pain. Having Qin Siyu hold the back of his hand no longer seemed to offer enough comfort. He shifted, turned his palm upward, and opened it. His eyes remained hidden behind his arm as he breathed deeply.
Qin Siyu understood. He covered Aston’s open palm with his own, and their fingers closed around each other.
Dr. Sterling continued packing the gauze. Aston and Qin Siyu held hands so tightly that Qin Siyu’s own hand ached. He murmured reassuringly, “Almost finished.”
Aston’s lips, normally so red, were a little pale now. Even in pain, he answered him. “Mm.”
Several minutes later, Dr. Sterling finished positioning the gauze, packing the front while leaving one end trailing outside for drainage. He gave Qin Siyu further instructions. “Keep him under observation, arrange admission, and take him to surgery.”
“All right,” Qin Siyu said.
After Dr. Sterling left, the two released each other’s hands.
Qin Siyu took a piece of leftover gauze, folded it, dampened it with a little water, and carefully wiped away the sweat that had formed on Aston’s neck.
He steadied Aston’s shoulder with one hand and wiped with the other, then changed sides.
Aston obediently tilted his neck back.
Qin Siyu wiped downward, removing the fine perspiration.
As he moved down the left side, Aston’s Adam’s apple bobbed.
It did the same on the right. Qin Siyu’s gaze followed the movement, then he raised his eyes and found himself looking into those blue irises.
There was a little sweat on Aston’s body too.
Qin Siyu turned the gauze inside out and used the clean inner surface to wipe his body.
He remembered the day when he’d been ill, and Aston had wiped him down in just this way.
He likewise worked around the two points on Aston’s chest. Aston’s breathing was long and deep, his chest rising and falling.
Qin Siyu couldn’t help looking at those two points, then at the muscles around them. He said quietly, “You seem a little thinner.”
Aston closed his eyes and turned his face away.
Qin Siyu: “…”
He looked over Aston greedily, from chest to abdomen, until his gaze settled on the wound still lying open. A dense, prickling ache filled his heart.
“Would you like some water?” Qin Siyu asked.
After the treatment, Aston’s lips were very dry.
“I’m fine,” Aston replied.
“Don’t be stubborn.” Qin Siyu stood to fetch water.
But he’d barely risen before something tugged his wrist.
He looked down. Aston’s fingers had curled around it.
“I’m only going to get you a glass of water,” Qin Siyu said.
When he returned, Qin Siyu told him, “I just checked with Dr. Sterling. It would be better to wait a little longer before drinking, but I can moisten your lips for now.”
Aston blinked.
Qin Siyu soaked a cotton swab and sat beside the bed. With one hand braced beside Aston’s ear, he touched the damp swab gently to his lower lip, drawing it from the middle toward one corner.
The lip was so soft. Qin Siyu pressed it slightly to one side, and it sprang back, once again taking on the moist softness he knew so well.
He wiped the other side, then the upper lip.
He carefully followed the tiny creases on Aston’s lips, moistening every line.
The shape, color, and texture were painfully familiar. Those lips parted a fraction now.
I want so badly… to kiss him, Qin Siyu thought.
A tingle ran through his tongue.
It was as though seeing those lips close up made his tongue conscious of its own accord, eager to move toward them.
Aston’s upper lip didn’t have the pronounced central fullness Qin Siyu’s own did, but of course it still had a clearly shaped Cupid’s bow.
Because his thoughts were elsewhere, Qin Siyu almost unconsciously, as if acting on instinct, moved the wet cotton swab around the little peak.
Aston parted his lips, caught the swab between his teeth, and tugged at it.
Qin Siyu started. He pulled a little harder, extracted the swab, and said, “You’re still hurting, aren’t you?”
“Mm.” Aston held his gaze. “Of course.”
Qin Siyu wanted to ask so many things, such as why Aston had ended up like this.
Why he’d been stabbed in the abdomen.
But someone was calling him from elsewhere in the hospital. There was no time to find out. As a hospital worker, he only asked, “You should rest for now. Is there anyone I need to notify?”
Aston shook his head. “No need. Thank you.”
“Mm.”
After Qin Siyu left, Aston raised his left hand, the one Qin Siyu had gripped so tightly throughout the debridement, and looked at it quietly.
He sighed.
Aston was admitted to the surgical ward that night. Qin Siyu never found an opportunity to ask him the details, only learning from Dr. Sterling that several robbers had attacked Aston and Aston had fought them all by himself.
He’d initially beaten them off. But one of the men got up again, gripped a dagger, and tried to stab him in the lower back. Aston sensed it and turned at once, but the blade still caught him in the lower abdomen. Fortunately, the moment the point entered his body, Aston kicked his assailant away.
That was all Dr. Sterling had been told when he received the patient.
In the ward, Qin Siyu said, “I know you’re very good at fighting, and you’re not the sort of man who gives in, but there were several of them! And they had knives! Next time… if all they want is your wallet, just give it to them.”
Aston closed his eyes and said nothing.
Qin Siyu knew perfectly well how rich Aston was. A wallet was only a wallet. It didn’t matter if he lost it. His life was what mattered!
“And it’s really unsafe now. You shouldn’t be outside at night,” Qin Siyu continued, trying to teach Aston how to behave. “It’s obvious you’re wealthy, so you’re an easy target for robbers. Refuse to hand over your money and you’ll only make them angrier. Lots of people resent the wealthy classes.”
Instead Aston asked, “Where’s the wallet?”
The reply had nothing to do with what Qin Siyu was saying. “Huh?”
“A nurse took it before they cleaned the wound,” Aston said. “Her name was Miss Hill.”
Qin Siyu was speechless. “I’ll ask.”
He shook his head.
Aston was impossibly stubborn.
In the end, only when Qin Siyu had placed the wallet in a drawer under Aston’s watchful gaze did Aston close his eyes again and consent to rest.
Qin Siyu gently shut the door.
Aston had astonishing vitality. After roughly three days of keeping the wound open and draining it with white gauze, clean new tissue began to form across its surface. The seepage stopped, the gauze no longer became soaked, and the immediate danger passed.
Dr. Sterling sutured the wound, covered it with gauze, and ordered that it be checked daily. At last the delicate only son of the Aston family was moved into a private room.
Qin Siyu went to check on him every day, never minding the trouble.
For the first two days Aston was allowed only water. On the third day, after the wound was stitched, Qin Siyu made chicken soup and brought it over.
It would help Aston regain his strength. It was good for him.
Aston accepted the bowl, lifting his eyes to look at Qin Siyu.
They both remembered that night when Qin Siyu had also made chicken soup. They had watched a film and tied red threads around the bases of each other’s ring fingers, binding them together.
Afterward Aston had pressed him down on the bed, lifted his legs, and entered him with only half the tip inside. Qin Siyu tightened around him until their bodies fit with scarcely a gap.
The moon outside was very pale, and the hospital room was quiet. Both men deliberately slowed their breathing, trying to act as though nothing had happened. Yet the more they slowed it, the heavier every breath sounded, making the repeated, long, deep breaths in the silent room seem even more revealing.
A dull ache had already begun in Qin Siyu’s lower abdomen. Aston lifted the bowl, drank all the soup in several gulps, handed it back, and looked at him.
Qin Siyu put his things away and changed the subject. “I’ll be on duty tomorrow.”
“Mm.”
Aston didn’t bring up that night either.
The second day after the stitches were placed, the hospital happened to be extremely busy. Five emergency patients were admitted to surgery one after another. As he’d told Aston, Qin Siyu was working that shift too.
“Sean!” Dr. Sterling called him. “While you’re at it, check the wound on the man who was stabbed in the abdomen!”
“All right,” Qin Siyu replied. He knew the nurses were all occupied.
Dr. Sterling was actually a surgeon at this hospital. Sometimes he worked emergency shifts, but he also continued caring for patients who’d been transferred to the surgical ward. With the hospital shorthanded and everyone busy, it was perfectly ordinary for him to ask Qin Siyu for help. He’d done so before.
A freshly sutured wound naturally needed frequent checks beneath its dressing.
The general rule was to disturb the wound as little as possible. If it looked fine underneath, with no blood or fluid seepage and normal healing, the dressing could simply be put back in place. It wasn’t necessary to replace it every day.
When Qin Siyu entered, Aston was sitting on the sofa.
“Dr. Sterling asked me to uncover the dressing and check the wound now,” Qin Siyu said.
Aston nodded. Maintaining the courtesy he’d shown the “volunteer” over the past several days, he said very politely, “Thank you. Sorry to trouble you.”
“All right.”
Qin Siyu approached the sofa and undid the bottom button of Aston’s hospital shirt.
How strange. The garment was so ugly, yet on Aston it still looked like something a model might wear.
When his fingers reached the second button, Qin Siyu actually paused.
He breathed softly. His fingers were normally deft, but now they seemed clumsy. They were stiff, though fortunately they weren’t trembling. One by one, he undid the buttons.
The room was so silent that a dropped pin could have been heard.
The central line of Aston’s abdominal muscles gradually came into view against his pale skin.
At last Qin Siyu undid the button beneath his neck. The collar sagged open, exposing part of his collarbones.
He parted the fabric to either side, revealing powerful chest and abdominal muscles.
Aston sat on the sofa. Qin Siyu half-kneeled in front of him, reached both arms around his waist, unfastened the pin behind his back, and unwound the bandage loop by loop.
As he worked, the tip of his nose nearly brushed the line of Aston’s chest. Waves of dizziness passed through him, and his mouth went dry.
When the bandage was removed, it revealed gauze secured to the skin with strips of tape.
The adhesive wasn’t very strong, which was why Dr. Sterling had wrapped a bandage over it.
Still half-kneeling there, Qin Siyu studied the gauze and asked, “Does it still hurt?”
Aston hooked an index finger beneath Qin Siyu’s chin, raised his face, and looked down at him. “Not much now.”
“Mm.” Qin Siyu looked back at the gauze and used the tip of one finger to pick at the edge of the medical tape.
His fingertip hooked lightly against Aston’s abdominal muscles, and he felt the entire lower abdomen tighten in an instant.
“…” Qin Siyu’s hand paused. But he had to continue.
His nail lay close against the muscles as he hooked again, then again. Every time, Aston’s abdomen tightened, his breathing deepened, his chest and stomach rose and fell.
Finally Qin Siyu lifted a tiny corner, took hold of the tape, and gently peeled it back.
Aston looked down, his fingers resting lightly around the sofa arm.
Qin Siyu slowly opened three edges of the gauze.
He picked off the two upper strips first, then the one on the left, and finally the one on the right.
The wound was on the lower abdomen. The tape on the right was stuck along the central line of Aston’s lower abdominal muscles, so close to… impossibly close.
Qin Siyu didn’t want to touch Aston’s skin, but it was unavoidable. The more carefully and lightly he picked at the tape’s edges, the more it felt like a caress, raising an itching, tingling sensation. Every so often Aston’s fingers tightened around the sofa arm.
Qin Siyu gently peeled back the tape and leaned closer to inspect the wound.
Dr. Sterling’s technique had been excellent. The stitches were neat; there was no swelling, and the edges were well aligned.
“It’s healing well,” Qin Siyu said.
Aston’s voice was a little hoarse. “Mm.”
There was a little redness, however, so Qin Siyu leaned nearer and examined it carefully to make sure the wound wasn’t bleeding anywhere.
His eyes were lifted, his lips parted, and he stared without blinking, half-kneeling between Aston’s legs, very close indeed.
The wound was on the left side. To make it easy for Qin Siyu to do his work and be a good medical worker, Aston sat with his knees spread wide and his feet planted on the floor.
Qin Siyu also had to make sure the wound had no unpleasant odor.
If there was no unusual smell, there was no pus.
Sometimes there was nothing obvious to see, so one had to rely on smell.
The wound had already been sutured. Even if pus were forming inside, it might not be visible from the surface. That made “smelling” an important part of the examination.
Experienced doctors and nurses could judge by leaning a little closer.
But Qin Siyu was a volunteer. He couldn’t do that. All he could do was inspect it earnestly and carefully, sniffing thoroughly.
So Qin Siyu brought the tip of his nose nearer Aston’s lower abdominal wound and took a sniff.
He wasn’t certain. Helplessly, he moved even closer and followed the wound along its length, smelling carefully, his light breaths brushing the skin.
After all, he wasn’t a trained medical professional. He lacked the knowledge and experience to remove the tape in a single motion, to assess the wound with one glance, or to tell from one sniff exactly what was happening inside.
Afraid of missing a problem, he could only get closer, look more carefully, and take longer over the examination.
He couldn’t be perfunctory. He absolutely couldn’t overlook anything.
Fortunately the wound was clean and smelled clean too. There was no sign of seepage.
Qin Siyu felt somewhat relieved. At the same time, he could no longer ignore something very near his face.
At first, that thing had only begun rising quietly, standing there without drawing attention. Now, however, it had swelled to its fullest extent.
Qin Siyu could feel its heat beside his ear.
The fabric it pushed up rubbed softly against his chin and cheek.
The hospital light stood behind Qin Siyu, shining forward. Its shadow seemed positively enormous.
“…” Qin Siyu raised his face.
Aston sat with one hand braced on the sofa arm, the wound still on his abdomen, looking down at him.