LA ⋆ Chapter 22: Sisyphus

Their clasped hands tightened, then released.

Sheng Yao saw Cheng Ai turn his head back. Their eyes met.

In the backlighting, Cheng Ai's face was split in half by light and shadow—one side exposing emotion without reservation, the other retaining only the barest restraint.

Cheng Ai braced one hand against the floor and leaned slowly toward Sheng Yao, the other hand settling on Sheng Yao's neck. His five fingers spread wide, the webbing of his hand pressed against the Adam's apple, his palm covering the throat, fingertips brushing past the collarbone, the side of the neck, behind the ear.

Scalding. Skin scalding, gaze scalding. Breath scalding, heart scalding too.

Sheng Yao felt as though his head were clamped in a red-hot torture frame, forced upward, his upper and lower lips parting naturally, like a beached fish gasping.

Cheng Ai's hand gradually moved upward, cradling Sheng Yao's lower jaw, his thumb coming to rest on the lower lip, stroking along the lip line, finally stopping at the corner of the mouth and pressing firmly.

Sheng Yao gripped Cheng Ai's wrist, their noses nearly touching, their breath already mingling in the space between them.

Sheng Yao exhaled his name: "Cheng Ai."

"Mm." A low, heavy response.

The next second, lips softened, and his lower lip was caught between Cheng Ai's teeth.

Cheng Ai bent down and kissed Sheng Yao, full lips and tongue, savoring the taste.

Sheng Yao felt the world spin in that instant, yet every sensation was so vivid and concrete—Cheng Ai's strength, Cheng Ai's warmth, Cheng Ai's kiss.

A thumb traced along the face toward the back of the ear, and the kiss followed the thumb there.

It was only when lips enclosed the earlobe and the tongue's lick sent a jolt through him that Sheng Yao suddenly snapped awake and pushed Cheng Ai away.

Cheng Ai's eyes flickered with a moment of shock. After a pause, he released Sheng Yao.

Cheng Ai said, "I'm sorry." Then he went to the bathroom.

He hadn't refused in the first moment—this didn't seem entirely unexpected. More than shock, Sheng Yao felt something he couldn't accept: the kiss had really happened. And then what? He'd imagined this kiss before, but he'd never imagined what came after.

Water sounds came from the sink. Sheng Yao saw Cheng Ai bent over, splashing his own face with water.

Sheng Yao didn't say goodbye. Under cover of darkness, he fled like a refugee. Cheng Ai heard the door slam with a bang, straightened up from the sink, and the person in the mirror looked as though he'd been caught in rain, lingering desire still burning in his throat and tongue.

A mess.

After that day, Sheng Yi didn't ask many questions. He just studied Sheng Yao with a look that seemed to say "I knew it." When Sheng Yao showered, he discovered a red mark behind his ear and slightly swollen lips. He hadn't even felt the small cut on his lower lip.

Seven days of Spring Festival holiday. After seven days, it shouldn't be this awkward anymore, right?

It didn't seem like enough.

Sheng Yao hesitated for a moment, then finally submitted a leave request through the office system, appending all his remaining annual leave to the Spring Festival holiday.

It was eleven o'clock. He didn't know if Cheng Ai was asleep, or if he'd be willing to approve the request.

The request was approved within a minute of being sent.

Sheng Yao's heart thudded heavily twice.

Then Sheng Yao received a message from Cheng Ai.

"Cheng Ai: If you don't like it, then let's pretend none of this happened."

"Cheng Ai: There won't be any more overstepping. We'll go back to being boss and subordinate."

Sheng Yao stared at his phone for a long time without replying.

Lying in bed, tossing and turning, the sky outside was the color of the twelfth lunar month—black as if it would swallow everything.

Though only a day had passed, Sheng Yao suddenly understood "Night Rain: A Letter to the North."[[1]] He felt himself trapped in that kiss, and in that kiss, he too was drenched by rain.

Sheng Yao hadn't read in a long time. Perhaps summoned by "Triangle,"[[2]] he suddenly dug out Camus's "The Myth of Sisyphus."[[3]] When he first read it in his first year of university, everything was a blur; the words slipped past his eyes without entering his mind. Now he'd graduated from university, entered the workforce, and become one of countless Sisyphuses in an absurd world.

Sisyphus was a figure in Greek mythology who had kidnapped Death itself, stopping death from coming to the world. The gods punished him by making him push a massive boulder up a mountain, but the boulder was too heavy and always rolled back down after reaching the summit. Thus his labor came to nothing, and Sisyphus could only repeat the task endlessly.

Hopeless and futile, and without end. For a time, Sheng Yao felt life was like this—absurd and meaningless. The world would give you no response; response was accidental, and the void was the norm.

At the end of "The Myth of Sisyphus," Camus wrote: "Il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux—We must imagine Sisyphus happy."

We must imagine Sisyphus happy. In that instant, something struck Sheng Yao, and tears spilled out effortlessly.

Life is destined to be painful; effort doesn't guarantee a response; the boulder rolls down again and again, and Sisyphus walks down the mountain again and again, pushing the boulder up again and again.

We must imagine Sisyphus happy. His act of pushing the stone is a stance of resistance. He refuses to submit to the absurd world. His fate belongs to him alone.

Sheng Yao shut himself in his room, lay in bed, and let the tears flow freely.

He probably hadn't cried in nearly twenty years. Even when his parents passed away, he shed no tears. He wanted to cry his heart out, but his depleted emotions were like a riverbed dried in the sun, exposing only its ugly nakedness.

Near twenty years of accumulated emotion surged like a broken dam, boundless and torrential.

Fragments of past memories scattered like snowflakes. He didn't like to dwell on the past, yet he remembered everything with perfect clarity.

A childhood without a father, a mother struggling to make ends meet, himself helpless to do anything to help. By the time he could earn money, his mother was already gone. Life's rhythm always seemed out of sync. Where could he find happiness?

An ordinary person of modest talent, needing to exhaust himself just to stay fed. Love was a true luxury.

His stone was rolling down too.

We must imagine Sisyphus happy.

Sheng Yao sent a message to Cheng Ai.

Cheng Ai wasn't particularly distressed, but his mood was certainly not high.

On New Year's Eve, when the whole family rarely gathered, he had no pleasant expression on his face and was scolded by his father for the third time.

Cheng Ai stood by the window on the second floor, his back to his father, and asked: "Does it matter to you whether I smile or not?"

Cheng Ji's mother came out to console him: "Don't quarrel on New Year's Eve. Let's have a happy family celebration."

At this question, the old man let out a muffled grunt from his nose and fell silent.

When he was young, he'd looked forward to a reunion dinner, but three people couldn't gather for a whole year. During his school years, he'd looked forward to his parents picking him up, but it changed from having a housekeeper drive him to attending boarding school. Later, his parents divorced without a word, and he didn't even know about it.

Though his stepmother was a woman of mere appearances, compared to his biological mother's proud and rigid personality, she was indeed more of a binding force for the family. In his teenage years, Cheng Ai had even been drawn to this crude and pure kind of love—"I want my family to reach the heavens and stand shoulder to shoulder with the sun"—and had envied Cheng Ji because of it.

Cheng Ai's back was patted.

Turning around, his stepmother said to him: "Xiao Ai, smile for me. That matters to me."

It was only then that Cheng Ai showed his first genuine smile of the day.

The Cheng family villa was filled with many relatives, seen only during the New Year season, most of whom came to pay respects to Director Cheng. The Cheng family villa was bustling today alone, with chatter and children's laughter constantly filling the downstairs.

The worldly clamor he'd once yearned for now grated on his nerves.

Cheng Ai found a room to stay in by himself. It was then that he saw the message Sheng Yao had sent.

"Sheng Yao: Do you want to come to my place for reunion dinner today? If it's convenient for you."